


The Fox Wedding

by Rhombea



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Animal Attack, Arranged Marriage, Blood and Gore, Character Death, F/M, Forced Relationship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, Kitsune, Manipulation, Monsters, Pregnancy, Yandere, kitsune!AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:41:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28438554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhombea/pseuds/Rhombea
Summary: You are to marry the fox spirit Kita Shinsuke after you accidentally agreed to become his wife by signing the deed to your new home. A contract is a contract, he says, but is there more to this marriage than you know? Will you be whisked away by one of the foxy twins instead, or have to marry Kita after all? Can you be with a creature that only seems tender on the surface, or will you try to run even if it might cost you your life?
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke & Reader, Kita Shinsuke/Reader, Miya Atsumu & Reader, Miya Atsumu/Reader, Miya Osamu & Reader, Miya Osamu/Reader
Comments: 28
Kudos: 184





	1. Prologue I

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this story was meant to resemble an Otome Game with three routes, thus Chapter 1+2 are the prologue, 3+4 are the chapters of Kita, 5+6 are Atsumu's, 7+8 are Osamu's, 9 is the 'Bad End', and 10 is the 'True End'. Personally, I recommend just reading it beginning with Chapter 1 and continue chronologically through it! Please don't be surprised that the time frame resets for every character though! Enjoy :3

There was no use in screaming and crying, only a few annoyed sighs you heard from the guard on top of the staircase leading outside. No matter how hard you banged on the bars, yelled for someone to release you, or sobbed into your hands, no one came to your aid, having decided to let you have your ‘temper tantrum’ down here alone. What an inhuman way to keep you, in a moldy, make-shift cell, underground, with only a bucket for your needs and a - stolen - bottle of water. 

“If we’re lucky, you’ll lose a few pounds before the wedding,” they said, bringing their long kimono sleeves to their faces to hide the ill-willed smirks behind them. But that was the least terrible thing the foxes appearing as human women had done to you so far.

Walking back from the bars to the small window, you stepped onto the single chair in your cell to look outside. Occasionally, you heard voices echoing from the buildings around you. The wind swayed the tall grasses covering every inch of the small village, aside from that, everything seemed abandoned. Roofs you could see had holes, there were no streets with cars or rails with trains nearby. The only thing you knew was there were the animals. The bugs in the grass, the deers in the forest, and the foxes in the village.

Crouching off the chair, you sat down, deflated, scared, cold. Not even your pullover could keep you warm, and you shivered, rubbing your hands against each other and blowing air on them in an attempt to warm up. But it was an effort in vain, you just tried to trick your mind into doing anything. Anything, besides freaking out. 

You had every right to be unnerved. It wasn’t every day that some strange man with perky fox ears and a fluffy tail swaying left to right appeared in front of you, announcing you were to become his wife. Actually, the chances of that to happen were so low, you couldn’t even speak of it as a common occurrence at all. He introduced himself, but no matter how hard you tried to remember, the name ‘Kita Shinsuke’ wasn’t one you were familiar with. As absurd as it sounded, you really tried to use logic on a person that was beyond any kind of human reason in the first place.

For the first few seconds, you thought you had actually made a promise to marry this man. Perhaps by accident, maybe drunk? But the longer you thought about it, the clearer you realized that there was no such thing as accidentally accepting a marriage proposal. However, by that time, you had already let him into your newly bought home, served him tea, and questioned his announcement. 

_ “It’s in the contract,”  _ he had explained, softly, no immediate expression on his face. You couldn’t tell if his voice sounded upset or amused. Everything about him was so relaxed and indifferent, he made the situation seem almost laughable easy.  _ “You agreed to be my wife when you bought the land.” _

That was ridiculous. Even you knew there had been no such agreement, and yet, you still tried to find your contract, unable to discern it from all the other documents you hadn’t yet sorted in after just moving into this house two days ago. Much to your surprise, it had been Kita who helped you find what you were looking for, all the other papers seemingly flying out of his hand’s way as he reached by you to grab the contract from them. The old, parchment-like deed of ownership in his hand made you realize for the first time how odd the features of this man were. Fingers as pristine as a child, yet, with sharp, pointy claws instead of nails on them. Not to count the ears and tail that moved accordingly to his doings.

It also made you realize for the first time how deep in trouble you were as you read over the deed again. 

In a matter of seconds, your life had changed around completely. You saw darkness in front of your eyes every time you tried to focus, your mind becoming dizzy from realizing your name underneath the additional marriage condition listed on the deed. Next thing you knew, he caught you with one arm, and you held on to the soft fabric of his kimono, scared you might lose conscience with your heart both setting out and raising your blood pressure way too fast. But that was only just the beginning of your troubles.

You barely remembered everything that happened until you eventually ended up in this cell. Just a lot of denial and refusal, people storming your house and dragging you out. You could still feel their long fingers and sharp claws pressing into your skin, your wrists and digging into your shoulders, and how their mouths formed grins too wide to be human. Screaming and kicking, you didn’t make it easy for them, but with your house so secluded from everyone else’s, you doubted anyone could hear you.

Moving to Japan, starting over, and live the best life you could imagine for yourself, that had been your dream. Now, more than ever, and in a scenario you couldn’t even have imagined in your worst nightmares, it was taking a turn for the worse.

“Kita-san,” you greeted him, your lips shaking as you held back more tears. Looking at him, it was almost unbearable to see him so calm in your distraught presence. “I want to leave--”

“You’re cold,” he noted, unfazed by the words you were about to mutter. Hugging yourself a bit tighter, you couldn’t deny what he was saying. The bars - as sturdy and metal as they seemed when you rattled them before - twisted and turned as his hand approached them, creating a gap big enough for him to step through. Only now, in the dim light of a candle he was holding, did you see the fur blanket over his arm, which he brought to you. Though you dodged away, Kita was unfazed by your fear, letting the cover fall from his arm and draping it over your shoulder no matter if you wanted him to or not. Admittedly, you were glad to receive a little something to warm up, gripping it with your hands quickly to pull it tighter around you. 

Only when you were done shivering, you noticed his hand hadn’t vanished, picking at the part around your neck. With a flinch, you felt his cold fingers dig beneath your hair, pulling it out from under the fur and adjusting the neck properly. It was uncomfortable to have him touch you so casually, perhaps more like a parent would than a stranger who called himself your fiance, but you had to admit it was warmer this way.

“Do you want to marry?” you asked him quietly, a bold question perhaps, but what else was there to talk about? His hand halted, laying down on your shoulder gently, yet you felt almost as if this was a simplified neck hold like you’d do with a cat or dog if they misbehaved. “There’s no use questioning what we want or not. We have a contract, and you signed it. That’s why we are marrying.”

There was a logic to the way he was speaking, yet his words haunted you. Contract here, contract there, what did it matter when this was about marriage? An act of love and partnership? Was this what people called ‘settling for someone’? He couldn’t be seriously wanting to go through with marrying a total stranger just because of a contract, right?

“But I don’t love you! I don’t even  _ know  _ you!” Turning to him, you regretted searching for eye contact with this man, his eyes being just as unnerving as his whole demeanor. Especially now that they seemed to be lit even without the candlelight reflecting in them. Almost as scary was the deep breath that he took after you said what was on your tongue for too long, and you turned away again, not expecting an answer from him. Shrugging off the blanket, you mumbled, “I don’t want to marry you…”

Before it could leave your shoulder, Kita caught it, placing it back where he thought it belonged, and proceeded to make sure it sat right again. This time, the tugs on your hair were a bit rougher, and one of his fingers even scratched you, which you noted briefly with a whine. Kita rounded you, hand falling from your shoulder to the front of your neck, driving up your throat with its claws until it reached your chin, and lifting it, he made you look back into his eyes, despite the tears collecting in yours falling from your cheeks and wetting his hand too.

“My family wants us to marry, and I care about my family.” 

He dragged his hand up your cheek, wiping the tears collecting in your eye with his thumb before leaning down to give your forehead a short kiss. “And now you’re my family too, so I care about you. Keep the fur on, I don’t want my wife to be sick on our wedding day, and then sleep until you’re woken up.”

“How can you care for me if you don’t even know me?” you sobbed, lowering your eyes, unable to keep looking at him. 

“Who said I don’t?”

Ears peaking up, you held your breath, trying to listen if he said anything more. But Kita didn’t care to explain until you finally looked up again, expecting an explanation that you feared he wouldn’t give you. “The ways of the gods are unfathomable, but that doesn’t mean everything that happens is without reason. We met before, [Name], even if I’m afraid you don’t remember.”

For a split second, and perhaps, for the first time that you met him, you saw his brows furrow slightly as he said the last words, his hand falling from your face, as he turned towards the exit, his feet not making any sounds as he stepped away from you. “What do you mean?” you mumbled after him, his back now illuminated by the white moonlight coming through your cell’s window. 

“Who are you?” you kept asking, standing up, barely able to hold on to the fur as you chased after him. However, the moment he stepped through the opening in the bars, they closed rapidly, keeping you from following him outside. All you could do was grip the cold iron with your hands, as Kita turned around briefly. “What are you?” You wished he’d answer you, at least now, at least before this whole ordeal was about to go down. Answer all questions, or even just one, so you could tame those raging feelings of confusion and fear inside of you. 

But instead, he merely put his free hand next to yours, fingers laying down on your wrist for a moment before they patted down your arm, telling you to let go of the bars. Instead, he caught your hand, bringing it up to his lips and kissing the cold knuckles tenderly. 

The candlelight vanished as a cold draft filled the air, coming from above the stairs. “Kita-sama?” an unknown voice asked, and you shied away as all you heard was a short growl in return. However, he held your hand tightly in his, not letting go even when the door seemed to fall shut quickly.

“I’m your husband,” were his last words before he finally let go of you, taking his quiet, barely noticeable leave.

Even when you assumed he was gone, you couldn’t find a calm second to collect your thoughts, the questions and lost answers working you up endlessly. You wished for some clarity, a miracle, or preferable even - an explanation. 

But your night was far from over, even if there might be even more questions than answers awaiting you.


	2. Prologue II

“I think…” Atsumu spoke out loud, having watched the spectacle for a while now. His eyes were fixated on the door to the underground bunker, and a smile played around his lips as he watched Kita leaving, together with Suna, who stood guard for the longest time. From their place on top of one of the half torn-down rooftops of the abandoned village, Atsumu could overview everything, even the celebrations held in the main hall, lights, and laughter reaching his twitching ears even through the magically restored sliding doors. 

“You think…?” Osamu yawned next to him, not bothering with bringing a hand to his mouth, still unused to the human customs they were forced to uphold. He, at least, didn’t like it, though Osamu still was better in  _ trying  _ to conform to them than his twin.

“I think I want her.” 

If not for the cicadas around them, silence fell over the brothers as the wind was the only other thing rustling through the grasses below their feet. “Crazy. You’re simply crazy.” 

“Just think about it!” Atsumu was quick to snap back, turning to his twin as if he needed to convince him for a plan he had already decided to go through with anyway. “Are you  _ really  _ happy here? Happy with their customs, their orders?”

“They took us in, ‘Tsumu. They fed us and healed our wounds after you went batshit crazy trying to fight that Tengu. You can’t just take the Clan Leader’s future bride as you want.”

Again, silence as Atsumu thought about it. Not long enough to make his brother believe he  _ actually  _ thought about it, but he pretended well. “Okay,” Atsumu ‘gave in’, nodding. Osamu sighed, knowing his brother felt no remorse or fault about what happened, and he never had any intentions to stay in the village anyway. “Have you seen her?” Atsumu whispered, eyes looking up to the moon, full and clear on the horizon. 

“Briefly, why?” Leaning back, Osamu picked at his teeth with his little finger as he followed Atsumu’s gaze to the stars. Sitting here definitely was better than partying downstairs. Maybe at first, he had liked being in a community, but Osamu too felt the dread of having to bow your head to basically strangers, even if the two had been adopted into the fox family whose protection they were now under. 

“She’s beautiful,” Atsumu sighed lovestruck, bopping his feet up and down excitedly. All Osamu could focus on was Atsumu’s tail wagging like a common dog, happy to see its owner. For someone as sharp and cunning as Atsumu, he truly was a fool. Even more so, a fool in love now. Annoyed, he reached for the telling limb, gripping it tightly and making Atsumu yap in surprise before throwing Osamu an angry glare. The latter merely stuck out his tongue, which riled up Atsumu even more.

“At least take a good look at her then!” he hissed, standing up and pulling his tail out of his brother’s grip. “‘Tsumu, wait,” Osamu called after him, sitting up on the rooftop as his twin left. Atsumu briefly turned to look up at him, as he was already off the roof, his gaze determined. He always knew what he wanted, and that was a trait Osamu both admired and despised on him. “You can’t face her like that. You’re so ugly.”

Hair stood up as on his neck as Atsumu furiously stomped away, screaming, “WE LOOK THE SAME, YOU BASTARD!” 

With a chuckle to himself, Osamu followed casually, wanting to see how this was going to end. He couldn’t let his twin have all the fun alone either. 

  
  


You could pace your cell, and you could cry, but this time, there was no one listening in to your woes. Even if you kept rattling the bars, pleaded with them to yield, nothing happened when  _ you  _ touched them. Kita had made it look so easy, but there was something else going on; you just knew it.  _ Magic _ , that’s what it was. How pathetic you felt, knowing that not even a guard at the entrance was waiting anymore since they didn’t expect you to get out on your own.

Wondering what time it was, something in you finally gave up. Perhaps it was exhaustion, or maybe just indifference about the situation now, but you were too tired to keep on fighting your problem. Your mind felt like some kind of slideshow, but it kept showing you the same thoughts over and over. It was trying to construct something that was out of your hands, tried to give you answers for everything. But as thankful as you felt to yourself for trying, its efforts were in vain. 

There were no gaps to fill out, at least not on your own. 

“Look at her! Damn it, ‘Samu, get your ass over here!” you heard from above the window, and god, for the first time, you felt annoyance as you did not want to deal with this. Whoever was speaking probably was just here to mock you again, and you simply couldn’t deal with this now. 

Once you decided to give up your endeavors of getting out and complaining, you had settled in the furthest corner of the cell. The one that seemed the least… unappealing to you from what you could see. But now, you stood up, angry that gawkers were leering into your window just to have some fun. Nudging the previously thrown over chair - you weren’t proud, but frustration had overcome you - back to the window, you took a deep sigh before stepping up on it. You tried to look strong, hoping it would seem like you were and scare off whoever was there, but inwardly, you couldn’t help but fear what could be awaiting you.

“If you’re not helping, then leave--!”

The words got caught in your throat as you didn’t expect two piercing pairs of eyes looking right back the moment you appeared in the window. It seemed to have caught them off-guard as well, and for a split second, they flinched away, halting their movements like animals determining if they should move or be quiet.

“Woah,” the blonde fox spirit gasped, inching closer immediately. With a short, hesitance glance to the former, the second one came closer, however, not as close as the other. A respectful distance, how you found, he seemed reasonable in your eyes. Only now you noticed that they looked eerily similar, almost like twins if there was such a thing under spirits. “You’re so pretty!”

The comment was now catching  _ you  _ off-guard, and you leaned back in surprise, almost losing your balance on the chair if you weren’t holding on to the window bars. “Oi, stop scaring her! Get back, ‘Tsumu!” the more reasonable twin instructed, though only when he gripped his brother’s shoulder tightly did he react. Up until then, he merely stayed absolutely still, only his eyes following every movement that you did, no matter how minor it was.

“Eeh,” he mumbled. “Sorry to scare you.”

That didn’t sound like he meant it at all. 

“You should be nicer. She’s the future wife of the Clan Leader,” the grey-haired brother muttered, reprimanding his brother who seemed unfazed while he watched you. In fact, by now, he had laid down in the grass, pushing it down. This was taking on casual picnic vibes instead of your imprisonment, and you didn’t know how to feel about that.

“I’m not… I don’t want to…” you stuttered, biting your lip as you felt the tears return to your eyes, though you doubt you had any water left in your body to lose more. “I just want to leave,” you whispered, looking down helplessly, knowing they wouldn’t help you either.

“You made her cry, you Dunce,” one of the two whispered softly, and you heard an upset, “Ouch!” follow the snip of a finger.

“Who’re you calling a dunce, you… Idiot!”

There was the soft sound of a scuffle, and you looked up at the brother’s watching them trying to hit each other while also blocking the oncoming hits at the same time. As stupid as it was, you couldn’t help a small laugh falling from your lips about how bizarre and absurd this situation was, but it made both of their ears peak up out of their hair. 

“That’s better. You’re cute when you laugh,” the blonde one sighed happily, his lips curling into a smile too. “Now, do you want to get out?” he added straight away, causing his brother to give him a look that was saying,  _ “What are you even talking about?” _

“C-Can you?!” you squeaked in surprise, instantly clearing your throat and lowering your voice again. Even if the spark of hope was ever so little, it was quick to ignite in you, rattling your senses to think about all the sudden possibilities. Even if those two were the same as Kita, if they could let you out, you’d take your chance with them. “I mean- yes. Please let me out immediately! I can’t stay here, I can’t become that… person’s wife! So, please--!”

However, before you could finish your sentence, your eyes caught onto something that spread behind the two, something that could be best described as fire, though you had never seen it in these colors. A mix between blue and green, flaming up in balls and twirling through the air. By now, the two had noticed it too, their body language changing as they tensed up, getting to their knees quickly. 

“And… what are you two doing?” 

Oh, this voice you knew, and instantly, all the hope you mustered to create inside of you, vanished.

Out of the fire, unfazed by its usual quality of burning someone, Kita emerged. Also, another man - or fox - stuck his head out from behind him. You hadn’t seen him around, but while everyone’s eyes were intense, his seemed to be the most fox-like and uncomfortable to you, always reminding you that you weren’t dealing with humans. “We were--” the grey-haired brother glanced at his twin who searched for words, eventually filling in for him, “--greeting...”

“Yes! Greeting her!”

“I see. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

Kita’s eyes fell on you, and you made a point to look away and sigh, wiping the tears from your face. You’d  _ not  _ entertain him with your attention, you decided. Missing the deflated expression he made, all you heard was a soft snort coming from  _ one  _ of the people outside your window. “Why don’t you all go back to the party?” Kita demanded, even if it was spoken like a question. Hearing the ruffling of clothes as the twins stood up immediately, you sent one last desperate glance at the blonde one. To your surprise, he looked back, giving you a short, unnoticeable nod before turning and leaving with his brother. 

“Idiot…” you heard his brother scold him. 

“Idiot, yourself!” he yapped back. 

“You’re both idiots,” the unknown man exclaimed with a sigh as he followed them, sending you a quick glance over his shoulders too before leaving you behind with Kita.

“[Name],” you suddenly heard from next to you as you were too focused on looking after the three to notice Kita having kneeled down, peering right at you. If it bothered him that you jumped, having totally forgotten about him, he didn’t let it notice you from his expression. Instead, with his hand flat on the ground, he cowered down to properly look you in the eyes on your height. This gesture seemed unlikely for a ‘man’ of his stand, yet it wasn’t the first one he surprised you with. 

“Did the two of them say anything unnecessary to you?”

“If they did, I sure as hell wouldn’t snitch it to you,” you hissed back, and he closed his eyes for a moment, which you could only interpret as him dismissing your choice of words. 

“Very well then.”

Raising from the ground again swiftly, Kita’s movements stroke you as odd, impractical despite being elegant. It just gave you another warning that you were dealing with something that was hard to believe. “Wait,” you called out to him, unsure why you even raised your voice. Maybe you still hoped for answers, or to reason with him, and now was as good as any moment. But his ears perked up, and he laid his head to the side, waiting for you to talk patiently.

“When can I leave? It’s dark and cold in here… I don’t want to be here.”

For unbearable long seconds, he merely looked at you, and it stirred up the fear in you that he might say, “Never.” The time he thought things over was something you couldn’t get used to. 

“Not too long anymore, don’t worry,” was his answer, vague and dismissive. “I suggest you don’t talk to anyone anymore until the ceremony.”

Sighing, you shook your head, one leg already off the chair, and you looked after it as you decided to end this conversation on your terms instead of having him walk off on you again. “Can’t make me…” you mumbled. It wasn’t like you wanted to challenge him, but to be fair, at that moment, you also forgot that he could hear you, even if you softened your voice.

“ **_Yet_ ** ,” you heard him hiss right at you, making your head snap back outside, seeing his wide-opened eyes staring at you with only the bars separating the two of you. This time, you did lose your balance from the shock and surprise, the chair wobbling below you as you lost your halt, your body plummeting to the cold, hard ground with a groan and a whine. Your hips and lower back were aching from the shock, but when you looked back to the window with tears in your eyes, Kita was gone.

And with him, he took all the hope you had, leaving you behind in the despair of anticipation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! :3 Let me know your thoughts, I'd love to hear them!


	3. Marry Kita

You heard about Fox’s Weddings, however, only ever in connection with rain on a sunny day. How fitting that outside the small preparation room you had been led to, sprinkles of rain were falling to the ground, lit by the sunshine sparkling in them. For almost an hour now, you simply watched the droplets fall, all while everyone around you was pulling and tearing on you, bustling about with preparations. It might not have been the best time to contemplate your life, but what else was there for you to do. 

Beneath the white, beautiful, ceremonial kimono, your wrists were tied with ropes, and so were your ankles. The rope itself seemed to had better days in the past, but the knots were intricate, and the woman who did them seemed like she knew what she was doing. As if this wasn’t the first time she tied someone up like that. 

Perhaps, there had been others before you. You hoped not, but you wouldn’t put it past them. Your life was transient, while theirs seemed to be boundless. It was weird, and you had only been here for a night, but you were slowly getting used to their faces. Yes, their eyes seemed too sharp, and their mouths too wide, but some had wrinkles, scars, or pimples. You saw your own species in them, even with their tails sticking out from their kimono and their ears twitching on top of their heads. Scary as it was, the longer you watched them hustle about, the less weird they looked to you. The more you could find yourself accepting them. 

Sighing was all you could do as you looked back outside, the tall grasses still swaying in the wind. Occasionally, you saw a fox run by. Sometimes the animal stopped, sometimes it didn’t. You didn’t see the two men - three if you counted the one that came with Kita - from your window again, and no one came to help you escape. The more hours passed as you were alone in your cell, the less hope you had for anyone to come and save you. Even the gods - if there were any - seemed to have abandoned you, allowing something like this to happen. You began to despair, but soon enough, you slept. Slept until they woke you up with their sharp nails and hectic demeanors, having to make you presentable and, as they put it, make a jewel out of a rock.

You were still drowsy when they bathed you in shockingly cold water, your reaction being enough for them to decide they did  _ not  _ want to deal with you throwing another tantrum, tying you up before proceeding with their preparations. Surrounded by their yapping voices, their nails leaving many, many tiny cuts on your body, something in you… gave up. You weren’t proud, and you weren’t happy, but at least they stopped lecturing and patronizing you as your struggles ceased and your expression turned somber. 

Finally, they stopped their nagging, gave you water and bread instead to consume. The women of the village let you go to a proper toilet, and they sent out the guards before they undressed and re-dressed you. At least, that much dignity you regained by not resisting. Of course, it was still strange to imagine you were about to marry the head of their clan, a fox spirit nonetheless, and looking into their faces was nothing short of agonizing. But staring out into the rain and being able to block their voices out from your hearing gave you some peace with the situation, no matter how absurd it might be.

“Miss?” you heard from beside you. Slowly, almost as if in pain that you couldn’t resist the urge to acknowledge the person who was speaking, you turned your head, letting out a soft hum instead of an answer. “Kita-sama wishes to speak to you before the ceremony. We’ll close the doors now, is that alright?”

_ Silly question _ , you thought, nodding slowly. You still had a hard time remembering anyone’s names or faces, but you were sure the young fox woman who just spoke to you got introduced as your liegewoman or maid. Whatever she was, you couldn’t quite remember exactly, but they never asked you for your consent for anything before, so you didn’t know how else to react but to nod. 

“Isn’t it bad luck for him to see me before the wedding?” you asked her. It wasn’t like you cared if he saw you or not, but now that someone had spoken to you like a normal person, the question that came to mind just fell off your lips without any restraints. 

“I… I--” she stuttered, her brows furrowing while her ears twitched nervously. “--I don’t know?”

What had you expected? Of course, she didn’t know. She was a fox. How would she know human rituals other than the ones that might have been passed down to them  _ hundreds  _ of years ago? At the same time, you felt the dread of knowing you’d have to marry into this kind of environment. An environment that wasn’t going to nurture your talents, skills, or knowledge, aside from - and you dreaded this thought the most - producing babies. 

She looked at you curiously, yet hesitant, as if she wanted to ask something, but decided not to last minute. Perhaps it was the fact you were wearing the wedding robes now that they started to respect you more. Or maybe, she just fulfilled expectations of her, which you found most likely. In the unlikely event that she merely pitied you, you couldn’t help but agree with her.

As they closed the sliding door to the outside, you watched the rain - your  _ only  _ source of comfort - vanish from your vision, pitying yourself too.

One more sigh did you heave before the door to the hallway opened, the foxes respectfully bowing their heads. Even if you had wanted to bother getting up, you couldn’t have, considering your feet were rendered useless, with your ankles tied up still. You didn’t acknowledge him or looked up as he spoke, asking everyone to leave him alone with his ‘bride’ - a word that sent a chill down your spine - and you didn’t face him even as he sat down beside you, covering your fist with his hand. You made him responsible for all of this, for all the emptiness you felt. But all you could do to punish him was avoiding him, no matter how much it upset you that there wasn’t more you could do. 

“[Name],” Kita spoke softly, and you weren’t sure if you heard happiness swing in his voice as he called out to you or if it was the usual indifference you were used to from him. Unfortunately, Kita knew what to do with you, even if you tried to ignore him so vehemently. By lifting your hand, he also pulled on the second one, and though you forced yourself to stretch, you were no match to his insistence that you’d turn around to face him. Letting your eyes sink to your hands, you watched him kiss both of them on the back lovingly, nothing but affectionately despite how demanding Kita was. 

“It’s finally the day,” he sighed, and for a matter of seconds, his lips curled into a smile. “I’ve been waiting for you for too long. I did everything I could, not for the Gods, but for them to finally gift you to me in this ceremony.”

“There’s no such thing,” you whispered, genuinely believing in the absence of gods if they allowed a mere spirit to capture, kidnap and force you into a marriage with him. 

“It wasn’t easy to get to this day, but you’ll soon see that life will be good. I will protect and cherish you, no matter what. I’ve been--”

Breath hitching, Kita stopped, and for the first time, you looked up at him as you expected the sentence to finish eventually. But all he did was look up, right back at you, and smile. As if these words never left him. As if there was something he was hiding. That moment you swore, even if it was the last thing you did, you’d find out what. There was no way you’d let him off that easily. Even if it was a tiny spark, you felt the fire burn up again inside of you. The fire of resistance and fight that you had drowned with your sorrows returned as you yanked your hands out of his, letting him know exactly what you felt. 

“This marriage is nonsense! None of us will be happy with it, even if you declare your devotion as if you’d actually care about me!”

“I do,” Kita was quick to counter, even with hints of indignation in how clearly he spoke those words. 

“You don’t. If you did, you’d let me go.” Unyielding, your hands returned to their place in your lap and your eyes back to the tatami mats on the ground before you. “A caring husband would listen to his wife and help fulfill her wishes! But you don’t do that at all… All you do is keep me like an animal, captured in a trap--”

“ **Stop** !” 

For the first time, you actually felt fear that froze you as his hand landed in the back of your neck. Even with the fabric covering you, Kita instinctively found it, his fingers clasping right around the flesh around your spine. Never before had he raised his voice like that, and though for a moment his eyes widened too, when you finally looked at him again pleadingly, unable to even reach back to pry him off you, all you saw was disgust. 

“Stop saying things you don’t understand anything about.”

Giving your helpless body a rough shake, you couldn’t help but burst out into tears from the pain of his hand in your neck and also the fear you felt as he scolded you like a young dog, looking at you condescendingly. “P-Please--” you winced, and Kita let go as suddenly as he had attacked you. Cowering low and rubbing the back of your neck with only one hand carefully, you could feel a headache growing, your body not being made for being disciplined like an animal. 

You flinched as Kita leaned over you, his hands on both of your shoulders, holding you down. He didn’t do anything as you sobbed your eyes out, just sat there, covering you with his body and keeping your head down low. If this was his way of comforting you, it was shitty, but you were too afraid of what he’d do if you resisted or made a fuss again. 

“I want to go home,” you pressed forth between sobs and gritted teeth. “Please just let me go home.”

“This is your home now,” he answered you, his lips next to your ear so that his voice spoke over the sound of your thoughts. 

“No…” you sobbed, shaking your head and feeling his face pressed up to your hair and shoulder with every movement.

“Once we are married, you’ll be happy, I promise. You’ll come to understand your role as my wife, and you’ll feel as happy here as in any other place.”

Finally, the weight on top of you lifted as he sat up, pulling you with him by the collar of your kimono. Once up, this time, he focused his hands on your face alone, turning it over towards him, and wiped away the tears from your eyes with discontent in his expression as he held your cheeks. “I’ll make you happy, [Name]. I am the only one who can do that, for I owe this to you.”

“What?” you croaked, but Kita merely leaned forward to kiss you between your eyebrows before letting go of you completely. Having to support yourself on the floor, you reached out towards him as he stood up. Your pointer was able to snag the seem of his kimono to which you held on tightly even though it almost made you fall over since his movement pulled away the support you had. “Don’t go! Talk to me! Stop speaking in riddles, damnit!”

Your frustration was getting the better of you, but Kita merely leaned down to brush off your hand from his clothes before his hand settled at the back of your head, pushing your forehead down to the ground in a deep, involuntarily bow. “It’s time you learn your place, [Name]. You might find the answers you keep nagging me about when  _ you  _ make  _ me  _ happy.”

Kita didn’t wait for another complaint from you before he strode off, the door opening without him even having to lift a finger. You looked after him, disgruntled and frustrated. In how many riddles could one man speak, without ever giving answers despite seeing you in this pitiful state you were in? Making demands as if he had any right over you and treat you like a pet despite swearing he cared about you? There was no end to his mysteriousness, and even if nothing about this situation was resolved for you, he made it seem like his will was absolute, and it would be a waste of time to tell you more since  _ he  _ had already made up his mind.

“Please return her to a presentable state before the wedding,” Kita ordered softly to one of the women standing in wait in front of the door. “I don’t want to drag this out any longer.”

That was the last you heard of him as he disappeared in the masses of - you assumed they were - servants and curious onlookers which glanced at you with nothing short of irritation. You tried to get yourself up from the floor again, idiotically feeling embarrassed as if you cared about their opinions. But only with the help of the fox lady assigned to you were you able to sit up again.

They were quick to rearrange your hair, which had come loose from Kita’s touches, and when one of the older women threatened to burn your tear glands shut, you even managed to stop your crying so they could fix your make-up. The time spent making you ‘presentable’ seemed even more unreal than the one before where they prepared you for the wedding. Your head was bursting with questions and also the anger over the situation dwelling in it, and at least a little bit, you wished your overthinking would actually end you. 

As they finally pulled you into a stand and led you outside with the ropes replaced by shimmering shackles, allowing you the bare minimum of movement, the drizzling rain and sparkling sunshine no longer consoled you, the rain merely weight heavily in your mind, reminding you of your fate with its name. 

You were to marry into a family of fox spirits, as you agreed upon by a contract. 

You’d marry their head no matter what you thought about it, though he claimed that it would make you happy, even if it really wasn’t.

There was no saying what the future held for you, and the more you thought about it, the less you hoped any of your ideas would come true. 

Yet, what else was there to do but take Kita’s hand as he waited for you at the head of the ceremonial procession? Taking it out of your own free will was less scary than you expected and less painful probably too. His hand was soft, and though awkward, he held it gently, leading you into the direction of what you assumed was a shrine from the looks of it.

“Kita-san, I can’t make you happy. No matter what you say, there’s no way I could love or cherish you after all that happened,” you whispered, only for him - and perhaps some very sharp other pairs of ears - to hear. “I don’t think our marriage will be a happy one, and as long as I live, I will remind you every day.”

“Shinsuke. Call me Shinsuke.”

“Shinsuke… I--”

“I know,” he chuckled, and it made you look up at him wide-eyed. You weren’t even sure he was able to laugh from his demeanor, but for a moment, you caught yourself thinking that it was better than his indifference. “I know you don’t love me, but I…”

His eyes swayed from you up to the green of the trees, the sun reflecting in his irises in sparkles. You followed his gaze from beneath your hood, wondering what he was seeing in the leaves. “I waited many years for this. I can wait many more until you do.”

Stepping through the stone lantern entrance, you didn’t expect the sight of hundreds of different creatures waiting for you. Subconsciously, you squeezed his hand tighter, and he squeezed back almost reassuringly. There was no time to scan through all of what was gathered, some having bodies, others simply… didn’t. You saw feathers and more tails, green skins, and disfigured proportion, but your fiancee kept pulling you forward towards the waiting shrine where the same mysterious flames from the night before were dancing up and down through the hall.

What a world this was, you wondered as you lowered your head again, pitying yourself more than anything at this moment. Why you? What had you done to deserve this treatment? To be confronted and forced into a world you didn’t want to be part of? And, oh, why were there more questions than answers? 

Kita - or Shinsuke, you weren’t sure if you wanted to call him that - took the first step up into the shrine, leading you by his hand, but stopping you before entering further, keeping you outside in the rain still and gaining a defeated sigh from you as you came to a halt. Some part of you just wanted this to be over and not prolong it as he said, but you realized that this was only one of the first of many times that Kita would put his demands on you, ignoring your wishes in favor of his own.

“Even if we are bound by this contract, I want you to know…”

His free hand reached up, brushing a stray strand of hair out of your face. A gesture for friends or lovers, not mad spirits that forced you to marry you. But he seemed to have learned how to touch you without his claws hurting you, and as unnerving as his ability to learn was as gentle was his touch to your cheek, caressing your skin even if his touch made your stomach turn in disgust by how intimate it felt. 

“I do love you. I loved you all this time, and by marrying me, you’ll make me happy - even if you aren’t.”

That was when you finally realized it. All this time, you had been bothered by him claiming to care for you, despite putting you through this situation. The hypocrisy of it had nagged you endlessly, but just by his words, you seemed to finally have figured it out. 

Kita did what he thought was best.

It didn’t matter if you disagreed or if it hurt you, as long as it seemed to be the best option for him. Perhaps, in a twisted, self-righteous idea, he did love you in his own way, and no fighting, screaming, and struggling would keep him away from this idea, he manifested in his mind. The idea that wasn’t even remotely close to how humans perceived ‘love’. Even worse than that, you realized that there was nothing you could do that would change his mind. 

Not even the rain falling onto your face and his hand could hide your tears as you realized what kind of a  _ monster  _ you were about to be married to. Someone who didn’t care about you beyond this love he felt and who’d not stop fulfilling his own desires rather than your wishes. But what could you do? You, a mere human who did everything you could have thought of to convince him otherwise? Was there anything else you could have done besides yielding under his pressure? 

Was there anything else than accept Kita’s so-called ‘love’?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of Kita's chapter, hope you guys enjoyed it! Let me know what you thought ♥


	4. Embrace the marriage (Kita)

“Don’t you remember?” 

He asked you this again on that one gloomy night as you rearranged your kimono. You had gotten good at putting it on, not because you wanted to learn how to do it, but because it was the only thing that made you feel better about yourself. The way Shinsuke owned you was painful, stinging, and tear-inducing, and you felt better not having to see the countless bite marks of possession he put on you. Thus, you learned how to do it. Better you than a maid, or worse, Shinsuke himself. 

“I don’t.” 

Your answer was always the same. How long had it been that you two were wed on that sun-filled, rainy day? A month? Three? Half a year? Yet, he never stopped with his riddles, and this question was the only one that arose every once in a while. Your heart ached with the desire to go home, leave this godforsaken country to be where you belonged - where you never should have left. But of course, it wasn’t that easy. 

“I see,” he whispered, and from the moon shining in through the open windows in your shared bedroom, you could see him nod his head thoughtfully while his eyes focused on your stomach. “You were still so small back then. The smallest human I had ever met.” 

His soft smile was lost on you as you shook your head, unbelieving of his words. Shinsuke didn’t like unnecessary talks. He’d rather have a quiet morning than one filled with small talk you learned. And when he spoke, it was hard to accept what he said. Nothing good ever came from him saying your name. No affectionate string of words sounded like he meant it when he said it in the usual indifferent tone. An ‘I love you’ was quick to change into ‘Mind your manners’, and often he ignored your wishes in favor of fulfilling some kind of clan duties. 

Perhaps, the only moment you managed to catch him off-guard was when a doctor - or something close to that just less human than you liked - announced your pregnancy, but you had been too shocked to be able to react to the sincere smile on his face and the tight hug he gave you despite the news being more of a tragedy to you. It wasn’t the child’s fault, even you knew that, but from day one, you felt responsible for it yet devoid of the feeling that you could love the kid like a normal mother would. 

With your hand falling to the little bump on your stomach, you were glad it was still decent enough to not be immediately visible. Yet, as long as you were aware of the growing life inside you, the more you felt the dread of having to take care of yourself for its sake. There were worse wounds that Shinsuke could inflict on you, and unfortunately, you wouldn’t even put it past the clan to follow his lead rather than step in and stop him. It still made your blood freeze to think back to when you saw the real him for the first time. No, not him. The  _ monster  _ he was. 

It was hard to forget the ashen creature that brought fresh meat for the village. You always thought foxes were small, playful yet wild animals, but that didn’t seem to apply to fox spirits. These images kept flashing before your eyes as you stroked your belly reassuringly, the baby inside of you not yet in need of comfort, but you sure were. 

Fox spirits were tall as bears, and every one of them deadlier than a pack of wolves. It was bewildering to learn that Shinsuke wasn’t even fully grown yet, only six of nine possible tails emerging from his back once he turned into that  _ beast _ . You could have sworn with his fox form being as tall as you were, he’d be at least grown out, and it unnerved you to imagine what he’d look like once he was. 

Even if he allowed you to pat his fur, nudged you into the affection despite smearing deer blood all over you, it was no less reassuring to know what he really looked like even if he acted like that. You had seen him snap a deer’s neck in two cleanly with his maw. You had heard him growl. And none of this made you any less afraid of your own husband, the father of your child. 

Involuntarily, Shinsuke had made you become what previously had been your worst nightmare. You were a healthy woman, so it was only a question of time until his forced intimacy would produce the child everyone around you was looking forward to. Except you, but how could you possibly be when this wasn’t what you wanted at all?

Even so, you realized the child was just another innocent soul in a much more complicated scheme of his ‘love’. One you still not understood even though he was so insistent that it existed. Nevertheless, you couldn’t let yourself be punished and endanger the little one, always seeing these huge, beastly creatures in your inner eye whenever you thought about running or misbehaving. However, you also couldn’t stop yourself from flinching when he reached over to caress your stomach, unable to forgive and, even more so, forget what all he had done to you.

Tearing you out of your life, your world even, force you into this relationship and himself on you, was small compared to the ‘lessons’ and ‘training’ he made you go through to become more fitting for your role as his wife. Your maltreated body was only one evidence of his ‘care’ and ‘love’ that he so generously had sworn to you before your wedding. There was no ‘happiness’ in sight even after being married for so long. If he thought that child made you happy, he had been wrong.

Answers. Answers would have made you happy - or at least, made this more endurable. 

“Back then, you were scared too.” 

His palm clasped around your hand tightly as he began to circle it over the baby bump. He acknowledged your flinching, your fear. Though even if he noticed, he only ever did so in his favor, dismissing it to do whatever he pleased or continuing to force you into obeying his will. Shinsuke always looked serious and talked with logic, you wouldn’t have believed the slyness in all of his doings even though it dawned on you that it was one of the foxes’ main traits. 

“Back when?” you mumbled, wanting to pull out your hand but getting stuck in his grasp, sighing inwardly as you gave up on fighting him. Not when he was so close to the child. You didn’t want to risk upsetting him. 

“Twenty years? Thirty? Time--” Interrupting himself, Shinsuke let out a thoughtful hum, clearing his throat before he resumed speaking.” Time is tough to calculate when you live for so long. Day is day, night is night. Sometimes it snows, and sometimes it rains, and all the other days are mostly the same. Only now, you are here with me, and that makes me happier than anything else.”

This time, it was on you to ponder, wondering about the time frame. There was no reason to get upset about the fact Shinsuke didn’t seem to know your current age, nor how long it really had been. The message ’a long time ago’ was received by you either way. What you couldn’t rack your brain around was that there wasn’t an instance you could remember meeting Shinsuke before, especially since you hadn’t been to Japan when you were as young as he made it seem-

“Oh,” you whispered.  _ Oh _ , you had been to Japan before as a child, with your family to visit friends that resided in this beautiful country. But you had forgotten all about it, how old had you been? Four? Maybe five? Now you remembered that the reason for your first trip as a teenager had been to see the country you had been to before but could barely remember since you were just a toddler back then. 

Finally sitting up from his futon, Shinsuke moved over to sit next to you, his right arm snaking around your waist while his left hand remained on your belly. “Do you remember it now?” he cooed softly, leaving a kiss on your cheek as he waited for an answer patiently. 

“There was a fox…” you mumbled, straining yourself to remember what happened so long in the past. “I think it was wounded.”

“Continue,” Shinsuke instructed gently, bringing his lips to your temple before brushing back your hair to continue down your neck, leaving pecks of affection behind wherever they wandered. 

“It was wounded, and I… I--”

“You gave me your rice ball,” he finished for you as you struggled with your words. 

“That was… you?” you slowly but surely pieced it together, and he nodded, pulling you closer to him and burying his face in the crook of your neck. His embrace was tight but less formal than any other touch he laid on you so far. A wave of honest emotions seemed to overcome him as you remembered, a voice of relief leaving him as your shared past revealed itself to you.

“But… But--” 

So many questions rushed into your head before you could even utter one of them. How much of what happened was coincidental? Was everything planned? Staged? Arranged? Your thoughts must have shown in your gaze, and though he only looked up for a split second, you were sure he noticed it as he chuckled a few times. 

“The truth is, back then, I wanted to kill you. I came back for you every day, and you were always playing in the garden, but your parents were always around watching you.”

Shinsuke sat up straight, instead now pulling you to lean on him and petting your hair. Your instinct detected hostility in his words, yet, your body told you to stay put and not allure him of the fear that crept up in you. You now remembered the silver fox you had met as a little kid, and though the memories were spare and rare, to think you could have died by his maw back then made a cold shudder run down your spine. 

“I didn’t want the humans to find out my clan was in that forest - now, this forest - I knew it would mean that I caused them to have to leave or hunters would come. However, when you did tell--”

“No one believed me…” This time you finished his sentence instead, and Shinsuke nodded. 

“I couldn’t rest, so I came back day after day, until suddenly… you were gone.” 

“Yeah, we flew back home after two weeks,” you mumbled, explaining it to him despite realizing you wished you had kept it a secret. He simply didn’t deserve knowing even a little bit more than necessary.

“Exactly.”

Gently rubbing your back, Shinsuke kissed your hair, his grip on you unbudging, but there was no notion and no feeling of yours that stayed hidden long from him. “Later I found out that the owner of that house - your family’s friends, I reckon? - were aware of us, and their ancestors were granted land from us to build their house in exchange for keeping this village and residents hidden. It’s passed down as a family secret.”

“And then…” For the first time, you sat up, and Shinsuke let you go without a moment of hesitation. Slowly, but surely everything made sense, even if those answers were less relieving than you had hoped. “I bought their house when they became too old to live there. Was that- Was that  _ all  _ planned?”

With your brows furrowing, you looked at his face, and Shinsuke closed his eyes for a moment thoughtfully, humming in contemplation. “Was it? Who knows. Once I learned the truth, I decided you shall be my bride.”

_ What a dissatisfying answer _ , you thought, and your expression faltered, body turning away in displeasure. For the first time since you were married, you heard him make a deep sigh, the shuffling of fabric behind you as Shinsuke inched closer, having recognized your defensive stance as telling him you weren’t all too happy with his story. 

“If we say fate brought us together, then destiny arranged everything. But I rather think that it was meant to be. You coming back to me is because we are meant for each other, [Name].”

“I don’t agree,” you muttered, feeling defeated. All this time, you had wondered how and why this all happened to you, but in the end, it really had just been Shinsuke’s doing. Part of you felt more betrayed, but the other half wasn’t actually feeling impressed by the knowledge. Disappointed, but not surprised, as a friend of yours always liked to say. “Then why the contract? Why set me up like this?”

“What do you think? Do you think you would have married me otherwise? Do you not despise me? Think that I am a monster? I think that’s what you called me before.”

The level of self-awareness was nothing you would have expected from him. Instinctively you would have liked to argue against him, but at the same time, his words depicted your feelings quite well. “Maybe I wouldn’t have thought that if you had--”

“[Name], please.” There it was again, the patronizing tone in his voice that had been the end to many of your conversations before. His arms wrapped around you from behind, lips landing at the back of your head as he mumbled into your hair. “I waited for you all this time, and know my feelings. There was simply no need for a year-long courtship and proving what I felt.”

“I could have needed it. Are my feelings that unimportant to you?”

Gripping his arms tightly, you dug your fingers in as best as you could. You had enough. Enough of his will being absolute and everything centering around him. All this misery just because  _ he  _ decided on marrying you long, long ago on his own. For the first time, you managed to pull out of his hold by your own strength, twirling around quicker than him being able to capture you again and complain. 

“You  **are** a monster! I don’t care about your feelings either since you can’t seem to respect mine! I never wanted any of this!”

Gesturing loosely to him and your stomach, you made room for your anger, even getting up to stand your ground properly. You half expected him to follow, but Shinsuke kept sitting comfortable, merely lowering his eyes and shaking his head. “Calm down, [Name]. You’ll wake the whole village with your voice.”

“What if?! As if they didn’t know how I truly feel! As if they didn’t just turn a blind eye on this situation for your sake!”

“Arranged marriages are very common here--”

“But not arranged by the groom himself! And even so, you still forced me into this, I couldn’t even refuse! You… You beast! You monster! You’re the absolute worst being I ever met, and I hate you! I hate you so much!”

Finally, Shinsuke looked up again, his gaze calm and collected as always. It was the last straw that even now, he did not budge from his views, and you decided to do something you had tried to avoid ever since becoming pregnant. Turning on your heel, you marched towards the door, gripping into the depression of the sliding door to open it. As luck would have it, these kinds of doors didn’t have locks. Thus someone usually watched over you, never leaving you alone, but weirdly enough, it didn’t budge no matter how hard you pulled and tore on it, demanding quietly that it would move out of your way.

“[Name] stop. It’s not good for the baby to get so upset,” Shinsuke called after you, and you just knew he was standing up as he spoke, causing more pressure to fall onto your shoulders. You’d run away. No matter the cost, you wouldn’t stay here. Feeling the door heat up, you jumped away from it, shocked, looking at your fingers while eerie, small flames sparked up at the spot you just touched. By now, you were a little too familiar with foxfire and what it felt like, and yet, angry as you were, it only made you spin around to face him, not expecting to have his face right up in yours the moment you turned.

“I said, stop.”

“Then I won’t listen,” you hissed back at him, rubbing your fingers carefully as they trembled in fear. Never before had resisting him done you anything good, but you reached a point of no return. 

“Let’s go back to bed,” Shinsuke instructed again, his patience wearing noticeably thin as you were unbudging. “You go to bed. I am going home.”

Taking a deep breath, he stared you down with those sharp, shining eyes of his, a glare that usually made your knees buckle in fear. You never had given him such a hard time before, normally yielding before it got this far. In some way, it was thrilling, in another, nerve-wracking. 

“I’ll say it only once more,” Shinsuke warned, reaching for your wrist that you pulled away before he could reach it, slapping his hand away in the process. 

“Or what?” you spat at him, as disgusted as you could. This would end here, you decided. All of it: The fake marriage, your submissiveness, the way you played along and embraced your role as his wife until now. The child too, if you got out of this house, this village, and his clutches. 

“You saw the beast before.” Shinsuke spoke his words calm and slow, but his voice lowered dangerously as he kept up his glare unbudgingly. It was just his way of not losing his temper despite you being aware that he wasn’t going to be gentle from this point onwards. There was a never before heard tremble in his voice as he spoke again, the sentence making every inch of you freeze in fear.

Perhaps, you had needed that. One last attempt of being deviant. How else would you have learned that this place might not make you happy, but at least it was the only place that would keep you safe. Safe of Kita Shinsuke’s true nature, the one completely insane from his love for you. How else would you have known that calm waters were the deepest of them all? Deep enough to let you drown in them if you did anything to disturb them?

Maybe, being his wife wasn’t the worst there was. 

“But you haven’t seen the  _ monster  _ yet.”

The worst was Shinsuke himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Next up will be Atsumu's 'route' ^-^ Please look forward to it and let me know what you thought about Kita's :3


	5. Run away with Atsumu

With your head bumping against the wall every time you finally slipped into sleep, your night wasn’t a particularly restful one. You wished for a soft bed, a mattress even, but all you had was that one corner in the cell you deemed ‘safe’. At least, you couldn’t be seen from the window or reached through the bars. It would give you enough time to wake up and get ready when someone came around to bother you again. 

The short clips of dreams you experienced were both colorful depictions of a better life than you were currently in, and at the same time, nightmares of shadows and claws reaching for you. Neither truly made the reality any better, but you were glad to at least get some kind of rest after everything that had happened. 

For probably an hour after your late-night visit at the window, had you continued to pace the cell. Some part of you had expected that there would be someone coming to free you after all. But the sparks of anticipation never completely started a fire of hope inside of you, and after a while, you realized no one was going to rescue you, no matter how long you waited. It was the point where you could only sigh, hug yourself and cower into your corner, wishing for the morning to come faster than the sadness and hopelessness you felt.

Undeniable, the thing that you feared the most was the feeling of acceptance that slowly but surely crept through your night. The longer you had to sit around and do nothing, the more you felt the despair of the situation. So you really would have to marry this man you barely knew? Was your life really going to take such a strange and undesired curve? Could you become happy here, under the fox spirits? Live a more or less ‘normal’ life with them? Even if you didn’t want it, for the sake of not having to fear for your well-being every second of your life, would you be able to accept it?

Those all were the thoughts weighing heavily on your mind. Other people had years to make life decisions like this - marriage, joining a new family and culture. And you had… hours, at best. The life you had wanted and imagined before was now in crumbling ruins. In contrast, you hadn’t even started building the new one, and that was not only tearing at your nerves but also ignited anxiety beyond comparison to anything you ever did before, inside of you.

“Hey,” you heard a soft voice in your dreams. It sounded so close and familiar, you were tempted to listen to it longer. So far, the voices in your dreams hadn’t been good in any way, but this one was welcoming to you for unknown reasons. Just like it was the touch to your cheek, warm and gentle, a palm keeping your head from bumping into the wall any longer. 

“Wakey-wakey ~” the voice cooed, caressing your cheeks in its hands as you slowly tore yourself out of your dreams. That was a peculiar instruction for a dream. After all, the whole point of dreaming was being asleep! You squeezed your eyes together tightly, groaning lightly under your mind awakening. Instantly, the heaviness of the situation returned, reminding you of the future and the burdensome expectations on your shoulders. It wasn’t so much a gentle awakening than it was an exhausting pull back into reality.

No wonder that when you blinked your heavy eyelids a few times, focusing your gaze on your immediate proximity, the scare of the century overcame you, seeing a face only inches from you. Your body, immediately alert, began to struggle, but your throat acted up as you wanted to scream, and a hand covered your mouth before you could go through with it. Your heart was about to leap out of your chest from the surprise, and you instinctively clasped your hand around the arm, digging your nails in. 

“Whoa! It’s me! It’s me, calm down!”

Were you supposed to know this person? Yes, the voice sounded familiar, but in the darkness, it was hard to make out any features aside from strands of light blonde hair and an eerie shine coming from the person’s eyes. Blonde hair? Where had you seen that before?

“We met at the window, remember?” 

Slowly, cautiously, you began to nod. Yeah, you remembered now. With your mind waking up, you remembered the encounter you had with the twin-like fox spirits, who got ushered away by Kita. One of them, the one who promised to come and get you, had been blonde. Your eyes grew wide as you nodded more strongly, letting off his arm, and he too put down his hand from your mouth, now that you both were sure you wouldn’t scream and alert anyone. 

“You came back...” you whispered, unbelieving. With the reality dawning on you, you couldn’t quite believe what was happening. He really kept his word. He really came to get you. “You- You…”

Feeling the tears of relief well up in your eyes, you didn’t think twice before throwing yourself at him. No matter how inappropriate or out of place this action was, you were hit with unspeakable joy that someone would come for you. That there was at least one spirit with good intentions in all of this was as unbelievable as it suddenly was  _ real _ , and you hugged him tightly with your arms slung around his neck. 

For a moment, you were hit with stunned silence until you realized what you were doing. You were just about to pull away when you felt his arms snake around you, pulling you in close. One hand rested against your lower back, the other on the back of your head. Completely enveloped in his arms, you could feel yourself relax a little, breathing in the earthy yet strangely sweet smell that came from him. Warmth spread all over your body, from head to toe, as he embraced you, and you felt safe and comforted in his arms, even if the situation was still far from it. 

But eventually, it was he who pulled away first, hand falling from your hair to your cheek shortly to caress it for a moment. The spirit kept you close, whispering into your ear to minimize the risk of someone else hearing you talk. “It sucks to stop now, but we have to go. I’ll hold you all you want later though!”

With a soft gasp, you pushed your hands into his chest, and you heard him chuckle while you felt yourself grow hot from embarrassment. When you moved, he let you go but kept his hand on your right elbow to pull you up into a stand. “Keep quiet and don’t let go,” he instructed, his hand falling to yours. Sparks of fear overcame you as you realized you’d have to hold his hand, simply because you expected that same sharpness of claws on his as on everyone else.

But when you laid your palm in his, he gently clasped it around your hand, squeezing it without cutting or hurting you. You could hold his just as tenderly, and yet you weren’t afraid anymore, not even about him maybe letting go of you. 

Pulling you along, you made one step before you used your weight to stop the movement immediately. “Wait!” you called out, softening your voice. Having stepped into the moonlight coming in through the window, you could see his ears twitch as you thought, the young man turning around confused about what could be.

“What…” Suddenly you felt almost ashamed to ask, and you avoided looking at him. Perhaps you were seeing him in a totally new light now. From the feared fox spirits, he had turned into something more of a prince, rescuing you, the princess, from the evil sorcerer - or so. Still, you were caught off-guard by his expressive face and the cute, moving ears on his head, the light almost coating him in a warm shimmer. You hadn’t noticed before, but he really was… handsome - if that was a word that could be used on spirits.

You almost forgot all about what kind of spirit he was.

“What’s your name…?” you asked coyly, and his lips curled up into a grin almost immediately. “Call me Atsumu,” he told you carefreely, and you couldn’t help yourself from smiling too. 

“Then… Thank you, Atsumu-san.”

“Don’t thank me yet.”

Before you could question him, he turned around, pulling you towards the bars. Only now did you notice the gap he created, and you wondered if he could use the same kind of magic Kita used on them before. He helped you step outside, keeping you from bumping your head on them in the dark, and led you up the stairs where he waited. “Where are we going?” you asked, cowering next to him as he checked that no one was near. 

“The forest. So far away that they can’t follow.”

“Should we go back to my house first? If… If it’s a longer journey, maybe we’ll need to prepare.”

Carefully, he opened up the door. There was no audible sound coming from it, which calmed you down as you feared someone spying you immediately. “That’s the first place they’d look. Where we’re going--” Atsumu paused, his ears twitched as he tensed, suddenly in high alert. The next seconds seemed like a small eternity to you as you instantly feared getting caught already. No words could describe the relief you felt as he relaxed again, turning to you and smiling wildly. 

“You won’t need anything ’long as I am around!”

Somehow, his chipper nature was contagious. You felt immediately better, not as overcome with worries. As if you could put yourself into his care without thinking twice, and you smiled back at him, giving a single nod in understanding. 

“Let’s go,” he whispered, squeezing your hand encouragingly, and you followed him as quietly as you could.

You would have followed him anywhere at this point.

  
  
  


“A-Atsumu--!” 

You did your best. You really truly gave it your all. But how could he expect you to run for as long and fast as he did? Even if you put all your energy into it, you still couldn’t keep up, your only saving grace being his hand that pulled you along. “Can’t you go faster?” he asked, pulling you by the hand roughly, so you had to set out a step to  _ jump  _ forward.

“I- No! No, I can’t! I need a break!”

“Come on!” he moaned, and you saw the disappointment showing on his face, making you bite your lip. He wasn’t  _ wrong _ . You really couldn’t complain. He was just trying to help, and you were currently risking you both by asking for a break. By now, the village could have already noticed you being gone and started to search. You didn’t want to think about what would happen to you two if they found you.

“Humans…” you heard him grumble in front of you, tearing you out of your thoughts. Though you strained yourself to listen to the end of the sentence, you couldn’t understand it, asking, “I’m sorry?”

“I said--” With a rough tug on your hand, he made you stumble to his side, a surprised squawk escaping you. Only briefly, while you still tried to comprehend the situation, did you feel his lips fall against your temple, your eyes widening as you repeated himself. 

“Humans are so pathetic.”

“W- What--” you tried to stutter, perplex by this statement, but Atsumu didn’t bother with waiting for you to comprehend what he said, quickly continuing to drag you along. However, other than you were used to from Kita by now, Atsumu had no intention of hiding his thoughts from you, speaking them out loudly without hesitations.

“You humans are so pathetic, you don’t stand a chance against us. You’re lucky that Kita liked you, and you’re pretty. Otherwise, I don’t think he’d ever considered marrying you. What good are you? Can’t run, can’t use magic, can’t fight or hunt or at least bite! Would’ve let yourself be married off without even a bit of hissing and clawing, huh?”

“That…” You felt yourself puff up in anger as his words worked through your mind. “That’s so mean!” you complained, wanting to shake your hand free, but his hold on you stayed. 

“Oh, it wasn’t meant to be nice,” he assured you boldly, not decorating the fact that he knew he was insulting you. 

“How dare you!” you croaked in horror. Up till now, you had found him to be so nice and caring. Where was this coming from all of a sudden, you wondered? Stemming your whole weight into the next step you did, you wanted to inconvenience him by slowing him down. Even so, Atsumu easily pulled you over the ground, your heel digging into the dirt from the polar influences of strength. 

A quick, patronizing sigh fell out of his mouth before he turned around, his everlasting smile on his face. “Now, now, don’t be upset. I was merely saying the truth, alright? Look…”

Atsumu closed in the arm-length between you, and you wanted to take a precautious step back but scrambled to keep your footing on the uneven ground. Without any hesitation, he wrapped an arm around you, keeping you steady and - for you - uncomfortably close. 

“I like you,” he revealed. The small peck he left on your lips was barely noticeable before it was over again. “I like you a lot even, I think.”

His free hand came up, his pointer finger landing down on the middle of your forehead. There was a creeping nervosity as you felt the fingertip slide down between your brows and to the tip of your nose while you were aware of the sharp end of each of his fingers. 

“Without me, where would you be? What would become of you? You needed my help, and now you need me too. What do you think will happen to such a  _ pathetic, fragile, powerless _ human like you if they find you after you run away?”

You gulped. There was more than one reason for you to do so. For the first time, it dawned on you that this man was no prince at all, in fact, and you wished you had realized that earlier, he was just as much a fox as all the others. This situation for you was very much out of the frying pan and into the fire. Staying in the village and running away was both as terrible of a decision, despite the realization only now revealing itself to you as Atsumu uncovered how he truly felt about you.

“Stay here and let them find you so you can be killed and eaten, or come with me. The choice is yours,” Atsumu whispered, bringing his face closer to yours as if he was about to kiss you again. With his breath on your face, you felt yourself beginning to shake, overwhelmed with the situation and the choices he was giving you. You never felt so close to death than when you heard about what they’d do to you, but going with him also didn’t sound as appealing anymore as it did before.

“I--” you started, but a sudden jolt went through Atsumu and, therefore, also through you as he suddenly perked up, his ears moving to high alert before you could finish. For a moment, everything around you went quiet as you held your breath. Atsumu subtly moved his head around, trying to make out sounds while he listened for them. 

“Chill, ‘Tsumu,” a voice rang out from behind you, and you flinched all while Atsumu relaxed a little, looking more annoyed than happy about who was interrupting. 

“‘Samu, you bastard. Did you follow us all this time?”

Finally, you caught a glimpse over your shoulder, noticing the other twin you remembered from the window earlier that night. “Nah,” he yawned, massaging the back of his neck. “Just caught up with you because you decided to stand in the middle of the territory flirtin’.”

“Damn it,” Atsumu mumbled, not really to anyone, but his gaze lowered back down to you as he thought for a moment. “They started looking for us,” he explained, and you noticeably froze up. The fear must have shown on your face, but he seemed unmoved by it. “It’s time to make a choice, Princess,” he sighed, finally pulling his arm away and letting you go. 

Immediately, you spun on your heels, running back to the grey-haired fox spirit. “Please! You have to help--” 

Before you could even finish your plead, you noticed the sudden strange spark in his eyes as he raised an arm in front of his face. It was too late when you realized that he wasn’t as comfortable around you as his brother, claws lashing out for your face as you came too close for comfort to him, just like with a wild animal.

Your eyes closed the second you realized you’d be hit, but nothing happened. Instead, you felt a gust of wind, followed by a hand pulling you back. “Woah there, Osamu.”

When you opened your eyelids again, you were staring at Atsumu’s back, shielding you from his brother and having caught his hand just a second too late after getting some scratches on his cheek already from the impact. However, he merely wiped the blood away with his sleeve, flinching from the pain. “You’re my brother,” Atsumu noted nonchalantly.

“But if you lay even one hand on her, I won’t hesitate to tear off your arm.”

“I want to see that,” Osamu replied, shaking out his wrist from Atsumu’s grip. 

“Get back,” Atsumu hushed to you, pushing you back carefully by walking backwards, never letting go of your hand. You spared a glance over your savior’s shoulder, meeting his brother’s gaze head-on. 

“Just so you know, I ain’t helping you with this,” he said, clearly talking to you. Then he turned his gaze to Atsumu, brows furrowing more in distaste. “It’s your problem.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Atsumu purred before getting serious again for a moment. “You’re not coming with us then?”

“Not happenin’.”

“... Alright then.”

Turning his back to his brother, Atsumu finally focused on you again, a never before seen frown on his face. “So what will it be? You comin’ with me, or do you want that scrub to drag you back to the village? He might eat you along the way, though.”

You felt your heart race as you looked at Atsumu for some time before glancing back at his brother Osamu. The latter didn’t seem too interested in the deals his brother was making, only waiting for your decision also. “I--” you whispered, trying to make the decision of your life. You never wanted to go back to this village, become the clan head’s wife, or even worse: Dinner. But was going with Atsumu really a good idea? If you knew anything about him now, he was far worse when it came to moodiness than Kita, and his real intentions were hidden by his smile. 

But still.

Your hand reaching for his sleeve, and immediately he bloomed up, his face showing a broad grin from ear to ear as he quickly reached for your hand again. With a quick wave and glance over his shoulder, he yelled, “See ya, ‘Samu!” before dragging you off again. You gave the twin another glance too, and whatever moved you to it, bowed your head briefly before trying to follow after Atsumu. Osamu merely sighed, mumbling something about ‘always having to clean up the mess’ before turning and leaving in the opposite direction, not giving you any more seconds of his mind. 

It wasn’t a decision you liked making, but in the end, your life was still more important to you than… whatever it was that Atsumu was planning. He, at least, hummed happily after you chose him, his fast pace never ceasing even when you struggled. “Will he not tell them where we are?” you asked, glancing back over your shoulder nervously, not seeing any trace of life behind you any longer. 

“Why would he?” Atsumu replied, and you figured that was the end of the discussion, even though it still made you uncomfortable not knowing what was going on. 

“What am I going to do from now on…” you whispered to yourself, feeling an overwhelming dread rise in your heart. The anxiety of the unknown and fear that maybe even after all that happened, you’d still be found and captured again. And what was the deal with Atsumu anyway? It was so hard to trust him again, even though it was precisely what you needed to do at that moment. 

“Don’t worry!” he suddenly chimed from the front as if he read your mind, and only now did you realize his lingering gaze on you, paired with an ever-casual smile. “We’ll hide somewhere no one can find us.”

“For how long?” you asked cautiously, still hoping that it would be possible to go back into your normal life someday. 

“Hm? Who knows?” Atsumu replied, laughter falling from his lips right after he said that. That didn’t give you a good feeling, but he squeezed your hand tightly and simply kept moving forward as if nothing was wrong at all.

“At least--” he laughed, the forest suddenly clearing up and revealing the great, white moon above you, once again making Atsumu seem like the beautiful being he was. However, by now, you had your doubts about it. No matter how pretty his looks were, his personality seemed to lack in many places you had yet all to uncover. 

“We’ll have a lot of time to keep the  _ promise  _ of hugging it out, right?”

He winked at you, and as the morning began to dawn, you realized your life would never be the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't lie. Even if I call him the biggest douche of the universe, I just love Atsumu. Had a blast writing this! Let me know your thoughts in the comments ♥


	6. Be safe (Atsumu)

“But if you leave, they’ll find you.”

Again, you couldn’t argue with that. You couldn’t argue with anything he said; not, when he was so right about it. 

  
  
  


It had been days now, perhaps a week since you two left the village. Time passed quicker when you were hunted and always had someone on your heels, so you lost track of it. It moved especially fast if these someones had long jaws and big teeth, trying to maul you no matter if you were awake or asleep. If you didn’t see them while you wandered the forests by Atsumu’s side - stumbling and failing to keep up with him no matter how hard you tried - then they’d come to you in your nightmare-filled hours of sleep. You weren’t sure if you were cursed or ridden with remorse, but you had never been so constantly exhausted in your whole life before.

No matter how safe your current location was, you caught yourself looking over your shoulder all the time, double-checking your surroundings. Sometimes, subconsciously, you held yourself back from touching trees or kicked away your footsteps when there was time for it. Paranoia was a constant companion, and it wasn’t any better than the person you  _ actually  _ were traveling with.

There was no hiding it how bad of a travel companion Atsumu was. His constant picking on your abilities, the insults, and trashing wasn’t only going on your nerves but even deeper, down to your confidence and strength.  _ When  _ you two were talking, it was mostly arguing with each other or you telling him you couldn’t take another step without collapsing. The few times that you stood up for yourself, Atsumu made it crystal clear there was nowhere to go. 

_ “But if you leave, they’ll find you,”  _ was his new go-to sentence whenever you dared to defy him. As if he liked to remind you that the choice between pest and cholera you made wasn’t going to guarantee you freedom from the other. Atsumu might be the pest in your life at the moment, but there was something just as or even worse ever-present, ready to lash at you the moment you distanced yourself from the fox spirit.

Perhaps Atsumu wasn’t the prince you wanted, but you came to realize he was the fox you needed.

You couldn’t keep count of the times you two had been attacked on your journey, not specifically by other foxes, but there had been many other creatures that seemed to want to pick a bone with your protector. Whether it had been because of you or simply because they seemed to have a specific interest in Atsumu, these fights always were more gruesome than your innocent, human heart wanted to see. One or two times, there had been a critical amount of blood lost after a fight, but so far, you two had managed to get out of it every time. Those were nerve-wracking times, and you had thought about simply leaving Atsumu where he hid himself to recover, so you could run away. Perhaps it would have saved both of you some trouble if you separated, and maybe you would have been safer on your own, hiding and dodging the things that came after you. 

But were you really? Thoughts flooded your mind almost instantly about the things that could happen when you were on your own. Most of the time, you didn’t even know where you were, stranded in the middle of the forest, and even if you knew, where would you go? You couldn’t go back to your’ home’ as it wasn’t a safe place for you anymore. And if you asked for help, the best anyone could do was bring you back there, where ultimately, you’d be found. You didn’t want to think about what would happen if another person tried to interfere with this particular situation you were in. What would happen to  _ them _ .

Somehow, seeing him wounded and whiny, you couldn’t bring it over you to abandon him like that. Of course, there were more factors playing into why you’d stay by his side instead of leave, but you were still struggling with accepting them all. Even if he probably would have survived without you, you made yourself believe you felt indebted to at least try to help him, perhaps tend to his wounds amateurishly. In the end, you rather endure his grumbles and moans than to really leave him, and that should have told you everything right back then. 

It should have told you what kind of coward you were. 

You were scared of the marriage, having wanted nothing more than run away. But now you were scared of the consequences - your life, even. To some degree, Atsumu was scary too. You saw him - his real from - and you watched him fight. If he wanted, he could kill you in one bite with his giant maw, and so, staying with him was scary. But he didn’t. Quite on the contrary, and even more so, against his harsh words, he still held your hand gently, warmed you at night by laying down next to you so you wouldn’t get cold, and brought you food. You stopped asking where he got it, checking the freshness date on the packages only to find them being practically new. Yes, you were curious, but he had his ways, and he never got you the same thing twice, and especially not if you seemed to have disliked it. 

This journey wasn’t quite what you expected your life to be, but every day, it was taking new paths and let you experience more things. Even if civilization was close, you began to forget and yearn less for it, the longer you spent time with Atsumu outdoors. Of course, there were things you absolutely missed, like normal baths and, well, fridges to open even if you aren’t hungry, but Atsumu’s drive to move forward was stronger than your desire to go back to normality again. And really, there was less and less to complain about because if you did, he’d take care of it. He’d run and fetch you new clothes or yarn to fix small holes in yours. If you were cold, he found you fur to wear, and if you two crossed paths with a river, he let you wash up even without looking - you hoped.

Over time, he was less and less an annoyance as he was a caretaker. Though his walking pace never slowed to something you could match, he still stopped ever so often to wait for you or even offered to carry you on your worst days. Riding a gigantic fox wasn’t comfortable, but efficient, and holding on to him tightly, the wind never won over the warmth coming from him. 

Still, and you assumed Atsumu knew this as much as you did, this arrangement you two had wasn’t something meant to last. 

  
  


“I know they’ll find me,” you whispered, thoughtfully dragging your hand over the arm he laid around you, spooning you from behind so you wouldn’t be cold. The makeshift dip in the ground you two used as a bit of a cover for the night was anything but comfortable, but having something breathing and warm lay beside you and hold you did a lot for you. “But… this life… I can’t live it either.”

He grumbled something into the back of your head, his voice lost inside your hair. Surely, it was just another complaint, but you understood what he wanted to say. To him, you going back and living a relatively everyday, human life was out of question, Atsumu always insisting that you’d be found and killed if you left his side. You offered for him to come with you, to live a ‘normal’ life with you despite your gut telling you he would be the largest annoyance you ever encountered. Still, he shied away from it. 

From what you had found out, he and his brother - Osamu - only recently joined the other foxes who, against what the two were, lived relatively civilized even though they kept themselves hidden from the public still. Meaning, the brothers were actually fox spirits much more feral than the others and not used to humans or how they behaved. Atsumu explained that with a stern expression, unlike his usual chipper one. Personally, he’d rather describe himself as ‘fun’, but apparently, even he knew the differences that separated the two from the clan. 

Living like humans didn’t seem like an option for him after centuries of being wild. But to expect the same amount of enthusiasm he had for nature, slowly but surely, seemed to also dawn on him as impossible. It became evidently clear that it wasn’t just your state of being that collided with each other, but generally two wholly different worlds that just didn’t fit. If you liked the day, he liked the night. You preferred warm water, and he cold - he the mountains, rather than the beach and warm sea. 

It seemed impossible that you two would ever get on the same level of understanding, and you were painfully aware that one of you would have to cave in if you two decided to stick together for a better chance of survival. Your mind began to buzz as you thought over all the possibilities, making you fear that there was another night of restless dozing incoming. 

“So you want to leave me… too.”

His whispers barely reached you while your head was focused entirely on different things, but his voice made you listen up. “What did you say?” you mumbled, slurring your words as you felt the heaviness of the drowsy half-sleep that you had already been under. Atsumu’s hold around you became tighter, and he pressed himself right up to you, almost as if he was trying to melt into you and hide, but your stirred, feeling alerted by the change of moods, making it impossible for him.

“If you go, I’ll be all alone…” he mumbled softly. Meeting his gaze head-on turned out to be an unfortunate action, your heart feeling a throbbing pain. For the better portion of the time spent with him, you had cursed Atsumu under your breath, wished for him to leave, and especially keep his potty mouth shut. But right now, he looked like a baby animal, with wide eyes and puppy gaze. A being you’d rather protect and coddle instead of the monstrosity he actually was. 

Perhaps he was uncomfortable, realizing you could see his feelings, so he quickly hid his expression in your shoulder, putting on a fake laugh as he spoke. “I can’t go back either, and my brother didn’t want to come. So if you go… I’ll be truly alone.”

Biting your lip, you felt an incoming headache press on your brain. The sudden change of feelings inside you was raging war against the ideas of the future you had been building in your mind and thought over. It was true, so much you knew, Atsumu left a lot to break you out and run away, no matter how much he seemed to think humans were worthless beings. Maybe that was the reason that he kept insisting on sticking around with you and tried to keep you satisfied even if his words were as harsh as bites. 

In some ways, that made him the same as you. Both of you only had the other one left and nothing else.

Even before realizing this, you had noticed how Atsumu was treated by other creatures. If he wasn’t fighting someone, even spiritual beings seemed to want little to do with him, huffing and leaving with a scowl. You couldn’t know if there wasn’t at least one other friend he had, but currently, it didn’t seem like he was very much liked by others besides his brother, who he spoke fondly off most of the time. Though you wondered why, you didn’t voice these questions, instead trying to think of what to do.

Happiness clearly looked different to you, but Atsumu’s taunts aside, he wasn’t as bad as that he’d deserve being robbed of it too. Even if separating seemed like the best way in the long run, it broke your heart knowing he’d be in this predicament just because of you and because you made the more selfish decision. Perhaps if you two knew each other longer, he would become gentler in his choice of words? Maybe he’d be more considerate and kind once he got to know you as not just the ‘human’ but actually as an individual? There was still the possibility he’d change, right?

“I’m…” you spoke up, not having thought about it twice. “I’m not leaving.”

“You’re not?” he immediately chimed up, pushing himself up and peering over your shoulder. “You’re going to stay with me?”

“Y-Yeah…” you stuttered, deciding to keep the idea of leaving at a later point in time to yourself. “I’m staying.”

His face suddenly was too close again, warm breath caressing your skin and messing with your head. Your heart picked up the pace as you didn’t know how to respond to the broad smile and delight in his shining eyes. If you turned your head a tiny bit more to the right, you could have kissed him without any more effort. There was something nudging you in your head to do it, but curse your reasonability - or bless it - that you figured that would set more things off than you could handle. 

“Forever?” he asked as innocent as a child, and you gulped, immediately feeling like you were caught in a lie. There was no plan of sticking with him longer than necessary, and ‘forever’ seemed awfully long for some time. Atsumu waited for a reply almost angelically patient. Instead, you felt his face nuzzling against yours, like an affectionate pet would. He genuinely seemed to be happily anticipating your response, and you wondered if it meant so much to him to not be alone anymore. There must have been more loss than you could imagine in his life that he’d be satisfied to be by your side despite him always making it seem like you weren’t up to his standards. 

“Forever is awfully long,” you eventually contemplated out loud, and though you couldn’t see it, you heard the disappointment and frustration in his voice as he spoke up again. 

“And I am supposed to endure it all alone?” 

Of course, it wasn’t fair, you understood it too. You knew he lost a lot too by helping you, and if this was his only requirement, maybe you could fulfill it. It wasn’t like he asked you to serve yourself on a silver plate, and no, he did not need to remind you what the pros and cons were of staying with him. 

With him, at least, you’d be safe from whatever was coming your way. 

He had proven himself more than once to you.

Slowly, you sat up, even though Atsumu’s body followed as if he was an extra limb on you. His touches and closeness never ceased, and you didn’t have the strength or even will to fight it. “I can’t promise forever,” you stated firmly, deciding to put a foot down in this conversation, even though you knew it was time one of you caved in to the other. And it seemed it would be you.

“But for now, I will stay. You’re not alone if I’m around, right?”

For a solid minute, and with the time stretching out the longer it was quiet, you two merely stared at each other, neither of you budging to the other’s stare down. If everything in this world was scary, it might be true that you underestimated Atsumu, but he was the least of your concerns now. He’d yap and snap, but you found some trust in yourself that he wasn’t going to bite you. 

“Pinky swear?” he required softly, being calm once more. With how close he was, only a whisper was appropriated to not burst anyone’s eardrums, and from the corner of your eyes, you saw his hand lift to the height of your head, pinky stretched out in anticipation.

You thought for a second. There was a nudge in the back of your head about supernatural beings and promises, but it was late, and you were tired and your memories fuzzy. Something in you didn’t want to promise it; after all, who could know how long this promise was going to last, and you didn’t want to think of the consequences when breaking it. But if it would end the conversation, and positively too, then who were you to deny him? 

Linking your pinky with his, you felt the fingers curl around each other tightly as if it strengthened the bond you just made. Once he released you again, you sunk down, back into his arms, wondering if you had made a mistake just now. But when you laid your head against his chest, you heard an enthusiastic rhythm coming from it, and it made you almost believe that it was the right choice. 

“Tomorrow, let’s search for a home,” he mumbled. These were words meant for you, but they sounded incomplete as if there was a hint you missed in them. Your eyelids became heavier as you listened to Atsumu’s heartbeat, his warmth lulling you into sleep, and you heaved another deep sigh as you wondered if the feeling of being safe in his arms was justified or just another illusion in your exhaustion. The last thought that crossed you before falling asleep was if this was any different as staying with the clan you tried so hard to escape from. But your mind gave out before you could think about it any more thoroughly. 

  
  
  


Little did you know that Atsumu would never ever let you go again. Even if you had told him ‘no’, it wasn’t like it was actually your decision, and with a wagging tail, he looked forward to the new future with you he’d build. One that you couldn’t run from, unlike what awaited you in the past. 

After all, Atsumu was the only one that could keep you safe, and he’d make sure you’d never forget it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't lie, this chapter was a bit of a struggle for me as I was lacking a clear direction for it, but I hope I was able to make Atsumu's yandere personality in connection with his more real struggles that I think he'd experience, shine through! Do let me know what you thought in the comments and thanks for reading ♥ Next up is Osamu!


	7. Rely on Osamu's care

There wasn’t anything you could do about your situation. No one came to rescue you, and the night dragged out painfully slow. Only a cacophony of celebrating foxes and the wind rustling the grasses outdoor reached your cell. Every passing minute you began to realize what it meant to give in and come to terms with marrying into the family of these mysterious and mischievous creatures. With your eyelids closed and your anxious dreams flashing inside of your inner eye, you felt it for the first time: There was no way out.

From that onwards, whenever you found yourself spacing out, you remembered these words. When the foxes prettied you up for the wedding, when Kita led you to the shrine that should bless your marriage - you always found your gaze poor in spirits, lowered to the ground, and avoiding anyone who was talking or speaking to you. Kita - or how he wanted you to call him, Shinsuke - prepared a long speech, a proper vow of devotion to you, while you could only look away and find yourself lost in another world in your daydreams. One, where you didn’t have to go through any of this. 

One, where you were free.

Only once did you briefly lift your head at the celebrations after the wedding. It was a moment of clarity and frustration, your anger directed towards one person especially - the one who gave you the miserable hope to escape before all of this happened. However, as your eyes scanned the long room filled to the brim with some scary, some odd-looking creatures of all kinds of spirits, you didn’t see the blonde, young fox anywhere, making you furrow your brows in anger. 

Strangely enough, or perhaps because it was the only time that evening you seemed to be actively inspecting your surroundings, Shinsuke noticed, squeezing your hand under the table to gain your long given-up-on attention. “Who are you searching for?” he asked as if he knew what was going on in your head. But you merely shrugged and looked from him back into the room again. Frankly, there was no answer to this. Even if you looked for the fox who promised to help you out, what would you do to him once you saw him? Glare daggers? Throw accusations at him? Minor punishments for what he allowed to happen. 

“I don’t know either,” you sighed quietly, pulling your hand away from under Shinsuke’s and crossing it over your lap, far enough so he couldn’t reach it again. Once more, you let your eyes scan through the guests, despite not finding who you were looking for. You were just about to lower your gaze to the table before you, filled with spiritual delicacies you hadn’t eaten even one bite from when you met another pair of eyes across the room.

Curious. Wondering. Intrigued.

And gone in the blink of an eye before you could see the rest of the person. Defeated, your view lowered, and your evening continued as is, in a better world inside of your head. Only this time, these eyes flashed before you ever so often, and you wondered who they belonged to.   
  


You wouldn’t get the answer to that until a few days later. If you had to describe your new life, it was boring and monotone. You were forced to take on the rhythms of the folks around you, and it wasn’t long that your body showed the first signs of overwhelming exhaustion. Getting up before sunrise and going to bed long after midnight simply didn’t match a healthy sleep schedule for a human. Then again, it was hard to find sleep when you still weren’t used to your new ‘home’ and the many voices and noises that came from the spirits all around you, contributing to the stress from the expectations and demands of everyone. 

It was a time of worry for the clan, as well as a reason to shun you for them. Despite not caring for their company, now that your being was reduced to being the ‘clan leader’s wife’, it didn’t bring you joy to hear their whispers of how fragile and sickly you were and whether you’d be able to produce an heir before your passing. None of those words mattered, and yet they hurt; you couldn’t deny it. 

For the most part now, you sat in your room or laid in your futon, battling what appeared to be a typical cold, though it simply wouldn’t go away. The foxes went as far as to fetch you human medicine alongside their magical ones, and yet, no day passed where the coughing vanished, or your throat stopped hurting. It was so dire that Shinsuke moved out of your room on the decision of the elders, fearing you might be contagious. It wasn’t easy for him, you could see it in his eyes, but he did so without a word of regret. Aside from your assigned liegewoman, no one came to visit you, and slowly but surely, you were sure you’d die a lonely death of boredom, much rather than succumbing to the illness.

Sitting up felt like pulling yourself out of a swamp as if something reached for you and tugged you down into the futon again. Still, you endured it with the little energy you had to take your medicine and have some tea. You were offered plain soup, but you immediately felt your stomach churn, waving it off tiredly. “You have to eat, at least a little bit. Do it for Kita-sama,” she reminded you, using your husband’s name as a convenient urge. 

All you could do was look at her dumbfounded, wondering if she thought it would do something to you. As if you cared about Shinsuke, or the clan even. As if you’d do anything  _ for them _ . Your subordinate offered the bowl with soup to you with a slight nudge, but you merely turned your head, fixating your gaze on the sliding door standing open, allowing you a nice view of the beautifully tended garden outside. She sighed, and you heard the sounds of her putting the bowl away as well as the shuffling of clothes as she tidied up and prepared the medicine for later. 

Ever since the wedding, the rain and sun combo had kept up, many spirits around you thinking it was a good sign from the heavens. However, to you, it was both a dreadful reminder of reality as well as your only source of comfort. The rays of sun reflected in the raindrops collecting on the plants reminded you of little glass shards that would show rainbows in them when the sun hit. Through them, everything seemed a bit easier. A little less heavy.

A cough erupted from your lungs, and you squeezed your eyes shut tightly, feeling tears well up from the pain and shaking. Next to you, your caretaker shuffled awkwardly, unsure how to help, but as quick as the cough came, going through every bone and muscle, just as fast it faded out. All you were left with was a sore throat and mucus. But when you finally managed to look up again, you were taken off-guard by the pair of eyes that looked back at you from outdoors. 

The time seemed to come to a halt as your eyes widened, a man strangely familiar standing in front of the outdoor patio leading down into the garden, staring back at you. You knew him from somewhere, or at least, you thought you did, even if your memories seemed not as cohesive as you would have liked. When you blinked for the first time again, your body flinched, the surprise finally hitting you, and it alerted the person who was with you, her face turning into a scowl as she noticed the visitor. 

“Runt!” she screeched, disregarding how loud her voice rang in your ears. “What are you doing here! How can you even--” Before she finished her sentence, she had already stumbled to her feet and ran to the sliding door, closing it into a mere gap. “Have you no shame? To confront the Lady so inappropriately?!”

“Kita-san sent me to bring medicine,” you heard his voice respond calmly from the outside. It was hard to see him, now that the sliding door was almost closed, but you could feel the corner of your lips curl upwards as he completely disregarded the allegations your liegewoman threw at him. Usually, all the foxes were very much in their own world, pulling at the same rope and sticking together and to their rules no matter what they did. But it didn’t feel this way with this one. 

“Kita _ -sama _ !” she corrected him harshly, and it sounded like an, “Ah, whatever…” as he answered, a small laugh falling off your lips, followed by another cough. You caught both the surprised as well as offended stare of your retainer as her head snapped back, hearing the sounds from you, and you took a deep breath once you recovered from the coughing. 

“Please open the door again,” you instructed with a hoarse voice, and she hesitated before complying with your order. Slowly, you pushed off your blanket and pulled at your legs, movements that your limbs seemed to have almost forgotten. Getting up was hard, and you had to rely on the help of the fox woman who supported you in getting to a stand so you could walk over to the man, getting on your knees on the patio before him. 

He gave you a short look-over, initially having taken a step back, which was met with a disapproving grumble from your maid. But he slowly regained courage, approaching to take out a small pouch from his pocket, in which you assumed medicine or tea leaves. Handing it over to you, you thanked him, holding it up for the woman to take and quickly bring back into the room to prepare it for you. 

You expected that the man would leave just like anyone else now that the business was done, but your feeling from before didn’t lie from you. With his ears forward and alerted, he didn’t just turn and vanish, but stood there and met your gaze head-on, and finally, it clicked where you had seen him before. 

“What’s your name?” you asked, doing your best to keep your voice low. 

“Osamu,” was his quick and straightforward reply. 

“You were at my cell’s window before the wedding, right?”

Catching him red-handed, he took a sharp breath, finally avoiding his eyes in favor of looking to the side uncomfortably. “So what if I was?” he grumbled back, and your suspicions were confirmed by him. No, he wasn’t the one you had been angry at, having noticed before that they looked as similar as twins. But one of them was better than none, even though your curiosity got the better of you. “What happened to your brother?”

It seemed like you had thrown salt into a wound as his face contorted angrily, his eyes narrowing as he focused them back on you. “Nothin’. What should have happened to him?” 

“I was just wondering,” you whispered, shoulders falling in disappointment over the answer. Even you weren’t sure what you expected. Perhaps you had been hoping for some divine punishment for this brother of his, who had given you the hope that none of this would have to happen, or maybe you  _ still  _ hoped that this person would be able to… take you away, even now. But of course, that didn’t seem to be possible anymore.

Osamu must have noticed your deflated state as he brought a hand to the back of his head, ruffling his hair as if he was feeling a sting of guilt come over him. “That idiot he--” Taking a deep breath, his hand fell to his neck as he looked up from staring at nothing in particular to focusing his piercing gaze at you again. “-- he didn’t want to be part of this.” Gesturing around him, you understood what he meant. “Said it was nuts that a celestial fox spirit like Kita would marry some low-life human, so he left.”

His words hurt, but not as much as the fact that they diminished even the smallest sparks of hope through the knowledge of the whereabouts of the only person who ever gave you hope in the first place. “I- I see,” you whispered, kneading your hands in your lap. It was a tough pill to swallow, but you took a short breather before trying to keep the conversation afloat. Even if there was nothing you wanted to hear anymore, this was the most anyone had spoken to you in a while without it being orders or faked concern. 

“You didn’t leave with him?” Again, another direct hit, and you could watch him puff up as if you had just offended Osamu. All you could guess, at this point, was that his brother must have been a sore topic for him. One, you kept attacking, and he didn’t know how to avoid civilly. 

“As you can see…” he merely grumbled, followed by a sigh, and you nodded, deciding it was best not to keep poking at him. 

“Ma’am, please come in and have some of the wonderful medicine Kita-sama sent you,” you heard from behind you, hands laying down on your shoulders as a quiet urge. You threw a short glance over your shoulder, nodding, and the fox spirit smiled, offering to help you up, but you denied her attempts. Surprised but understanding, she took some steps back to wait for you. 

Osamu seemed to be unsure of what to do as he, too, distanced himself a few steps, looking towards the forest on his left, ready to get away. But before that, you caught his attention once more. “Will you come back?” you whispered, and his eyes widened before his brows furrowed in confusion. His head shook ‘no’ but his mouth mumbled, “Maybe?” before he turned and walked away, throwing you a last, confused glance over his shoulder. Giving him a soft smile, you waited until you could no longer see him behind the trees before carefully getting up, supporting yourself on the floor and pillars of the house, and walking back into the room with small, weak steps.

“You shouldn’t interact with this runt, Ma’am,” she softly scolded you as your caretaker helped you back into bed. “He’s just a wild fox that Kita-sama took a liking to, nothing special and way below you.”

“I’m a human,” you spoke unconcerned, groaning exhaustedly as you lowered yourself to the futon. “I don’t think anyone would agree with you that he is below me.”

She had no answer to this, silently handing you the medicine which you took without any struggle. Laying down in bed, you were left alone to yourself, even though the spirit’s face showed serious concern - perhaps because of the smile on your lips - as she left. It didn’t really matter to you what he was or who liked him or not. All you knew already was that  _ you  _ liked Osamu.

Even if it was just because he was as different as you were. 

  
  
  


It might have come as a shock to anyone who heard the news, especially your own husband. Still, Shinsuke couldn’t refuse your request when it was the first thing you ever asked him for, all smiley and innocently. There were many voices raised against his decision to let Osamu become something akin to your personal guard, but Shinsuke shushed them all even though he couldn’t keep himself from giving you questioning glances either. 

The person most surprised, however, must have been the young fox himself. He appeared to his first shift ever with a scowl on his face, sitting in front of your room for the whole day like a beaten dog, deflated and unapproachable. Not that you cared, you were keeping the doors to your quarters open, watching him from a respectful distance, whistling ever so often, which alerted him. 

It. Was. Glorious. 

Whatever had come over you, from the very first day you had taken a liking to him. Though it wasn’t immediately shared by both parts, Osamu more or less accepted his fate, even though he voiced his dissatisfaction without thinking twice, much to the anger of every other servant who’d never allow themselves to do the same. Finally, for you, there was something to do, someone to interact with who wasn’t just a sly, grinning fox but who had opinions and courage to speak. 

Your cold finally ceased to be only three days after Osamu was employed, and the whole house was in awe as you asked them to dress you for a stroll around the village, clutching their hands and thanking the gods that you were finally behaving as you should. With Osamu and other important fox women of the town, as well as their entourage, your first walk through the houses and marketplace was very much celebrated by everyone, even the elders and your husband taking the time to find you. 

Slowly but surely, you fit into the fox village. Every mistrust they had before, rooting from the fact that you weren’t like the spirits, slowly vanished, and you were welcomed into their ranks and given back your freedom to a certain degree. They were long, endless months of convincing them, but they loved the woman you were becoming, and unbeknownst to them, you felt closer to them than ever.

After all, you had a secret. One, they would have never guessed just by how you behaved and acted.

It was just another day that you and Osamu did your typical walk around the village to keep you healthy and seen by the others. Even if it was only the two of you going around, you had no shortcomings on visits to make and people to greet. You and Shinsuke were the fundament of this village, and everyone wanted to see you and be able to look up to you. Even if you weren’t the strongest or prettiest fox in the village, and many mothers still hoped that their daughters would maybe outdo you on some point in terms of Kita’s love, you still turned out to be helpful and aid everyone who came to you. However, you were  _ way  _ beyond the point of caring about that. All you wanted was to get to the forest quickly.

Hidden by the long fabric you wore, you tugged twice on Osamu’s sleeve, his head snapping to you in understanding before he looked around, checking if nobody saw, and put his arm behind you, leading you off the road and behind the houses towards the forest. If someone called your change phenomenal, they never forgot to mention Osamu too, who had become caring and well-adapted into this new role also. However, the reason for you two to have settled so well wasn’t a sense of duty, but rather, one of desire. 

Hot lips didn’t miss yours even when clad in the darkness of the thicket all around you. You returned the affection all too willingly, slinging your arms around his neck to pull him closer. Compared to your body temperature, the foxes always radiated warmth, and you soaked it in just like his touches all over your body, clawing into your hips and massaging your back without ever leaving your lips yearning for more attention. 

“My Lady is becoming more eager every day,” he mumbled against your mouth, and you felt his lips curl into a grin as he pressed you closer. 

“Oh, hush,” you whispered back, but you couldn’t deny the prickling you felt from the dangerous closeness you two had. Returning his smile, you kissed Osamu again, breathing in the earthy smells from all around you and tasting your lip balm on his lips. No one could excite you as much, or steal your breath quite like your cunning guard fox, a rebel through and through. If you had to describe him, you’d say that calm waters ran deep, and Osamu was no less sly than any other fox in this village. But at least, both of your intentions united. 

No matter how nice you behaved and played the role of a good wife, everyone should have expected something like this to happen. The others were blinded by the farce you put on and the stupid belief that a human could not do something so daring. They also didn’t account that you had one of their very own working together with you. 

Osamu had become precisely what you needed, when you needed. You suspected, yet did not care about any ulterior motives he had, as long as he gave you what you needed. Disobedience, rebellion, thrill - with him, you had it all. By his side, you could collect your strength to behave appropriately in front of everyone, and at the same time, you could practically scream it in their face that they had no reign over you.

It was questionable if it was love you felt for him or merely the desire to defy everyone by doing all the things to Osamu that a married woman like you shouldn’t. Just as questionable as it was if he was doing it because he had feelings for you, or merely because he couldn’t care less about the clan and more about his own desires. In a way, you indeed were a trophy to have, even if no one knew about it. After all, you allowed only Osamu to do all the things to you that you even denied Shinsuke. 

And by the gods, Osamu was not shy.

Squeezing your ass tightly, he made you mewl into the kiss, eyes fluttering in surprise and a bolt of desire flashing through your body. Had it not been for the little bit of dignity you kept to yourself, you’d have thrown yourself at him as if  _ you  _ were the wild animal without a second thought. But as you felt his lips wander deeper and a moan escaped you, your mind violently snapped back to reality.

“W-Wait,” you whispered frantically as you felt his teeth nibble into your neck and gave his back a few nervous pats to gain his attention.

“I’m sorry,” you commiserated as he looked up again and sighed. “We can’t have others know.”

It was hard to deny him something that both of you would have liked. By now, you were aware that mates exchanged ‘friendly’ bites to each other as a sign of affection. Still, neither of you were in a position to wear them as proudly as the others did. Bringing your hands up, you cupped his face, smushing it gently between your palms until he grimaced. Osamu couldn’t care less about the other’s opinions, and he told you as much. He often shared with you the saucy secrets this village held, those noble foxes not at all loyal and devoted as they pretended to be either, but even if you wanted Osamu just as much as he did, you couldn’t help yourself from holding back. 

What you feared most was what would become of your life if other’s found out? As it was now, every day was a little bit more fun and entertaining. You finally had something to do, even if it was in secrecy and you weren’t alone, sharing what was on your mind with Osamu. Would they cast him out if they found out? Would you be punished, or worse? Those questions weren’t what you wanted to bother yourself with at that moment, not when you were with Osamu, but they were still present. 

“Osamu…” you cooed his name, dragging your thumb over his lips while watching after it longingly. “You’re all I have left, so don’t leave me, okay? I can only rely on you now. Let us not risk that this will have to change.”

A hesitant moment passed where his keen eyes observed you. Every change in expression, every shudder from your lips and flinch of your eyes, he saw it. Even now, he still looked at you with the same intrigued glances as he did back at your wedding banquet. However, now you found pleasure in being the only reflection in his eyes. Maybe you were still lying about your real feelings for him, as he could be ripped from your life as fast as you were torn out of yours months back, and losing him would hurt tremendously. Perhaps, you did love him, as he embodied all of your freedom and decisions until now.

And maybe, he knew that, as he grinned, puckering his lips to kiss your thumb before opening his mouth to bite down behind your nail cautiously. For a second, he waited for you to pull away, but in your bafflement, it was too late to react when he clenched his teeth together, making you cringe in pain, which remained in your finger for a few seconds. When he finally let go, your finger was beginning to swell, trying to pump blood through it, but clear as day, his teeth marks remained, and you realized what he was doing.

“I don’t plan on going anywhere,” he confirmed your suspicions, and you laid your hand against his chest - now decorated by his mark - and admired your thumb as it recovered. Soon enough, your head followed, and he tightened his embrace, giving you a sense of safety in his arms. 

This was far from the perfect solution to the much bigger problem you two were in, but you were glad that he understood where you were coming from. With Osamu by your side, no matter how long it would last, you felt as if you could endure the day-to-day horrors you had to fight - may it be whispering foxes or loneliness - if you knew that Osamu would be there to hold you again once it was all over. Even if it meant relying on him to make you happy and fulfill your wishes, you knew you could do it with him by your side, no matter what was coming. 

And Osamu finally understood it too. The interest his brother had in you back then. Luckily, he wasn’t as skittish as his twin, and now, the fruits of his labor and patience were paying off. Life had become way more exciting, knowing that he was the one you yearned to be with. He had spent years fighting and being with Atsumu so that he genuinely believed this village would become a dull chapter in his life against his expectations when he first arrived. But you just made it the most interesting thing he could possibly be doing right now.

Kissing your head with a sly grin, he swore to himself that he’d leave many more marks all over you until you were completely his to claim. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Osamu was really fun to write! Let me know what you thought in the comments and please look forward to the next chapter with him ♥


	8. Take what you can (Osamu)

**_Bolder_ ** , you thought as you pressed against Osamu, only the thin paper door separating you two from the housekeepers bustling around in the hallways behind it. 

Osamu smirked into the kiss but returned it just as affectionately. Just as needy even. As if you two could only breathe if it was the air from each other's lungs. Perhaps that was the case, as you two fell more and more into your depraved lifestyle, defying any rule or pride you should upkeep while being the clan's headmistress. However, all you wanted was to risk it all and to get a moment more of the prickling and fear of getting caught inside of you. If not for the adrenaline this affair gave you, you probably wouldn't have made it as long as you did in your current life situation.

All those meaningless celebrations, receptions, and tea parties with chatter that you couldn't care less about, they were mangling you. Day in, day out, you had to endure having your feelings and roots trampled on as the foxes tried to make you more and more into what they were. They were trying to forget you were human, while you were trying to forget they were not - just to keep your sanity. 

Hadn't you tried your best to please them? Hadn't you tried to become what they wanted you to be, at least on the outside? Obliged to all their wishes? Listened to all their worries? You sure did.

But it wasn't enough.

These foxes were trying to suck out everything they could get from you. You'd have served them better as a broken porcelain doll than what you were right now. This way, they'd just have to pretty you up and have you sit still at Shinsuke's side whenever there was an official meeting. Truly, you had tried learning their customs and history, understand your role to fit it better. Still, you simply couldn't meet their expectations in the end. They'd keep setting up new ones for you, and when you climbed the hill, another mountain appeared before your eyes. You'd always be a failure to them, no matter what you did. The only joy you had left was that bold, foxy guard you had. The only one who accepted you and didn't try to change you into anyone else. 

By now, even though you knew you didn't have a big choice in who to be with, you were happy to take what you could, and that was Osamu. 

Leaning into the kiss, you didn't care about the bustling noises outside. Anytime now, someone could find you, but that made everything just so much more fun, didn't it? Whereas in the beginning, you two had been so careful to hide and not be seen, it was now a game of how far you could go until you got caught. 

Osamu had nerves of steel pulling you into every shadow and every small hallway to kiss you, touch you,  _ please  _ you. When the wind rose, and everyone defended their eyes by keeping them hidden behind the enormous sleeves of their clothes, he pulled you towards him to kiss you passionately. And when your handmaid left you for the night, he snarkily told her to have a lovely evening before slipping into the room behind her. 

In your opinion, it wasn't unlikely someone had already noticed. Noticed the lack of guards around your room at night, the hair in your futon, or perhaps, simply your absence from some social gathering, where no one knew about your  _ or  _ Osamu's whereabouts. He was never there to ask, and though they were relieved you probably were together, the foxes couldn't help but murmur behind held-up paws. 

But who cared? Not Osamu, that much was sure. 

Or if he did, he didn't let it show. His interest in you didn't falter, even if in the beginning you still pushed him away and denied his intimate attempts of loving you. You had been like a scared chicken in the faces of the foxes. Scared that he'd leave a scratch, scared he'd leave a mark, and scared that someone could notice. Not that any of it mattered anymore, since you, too, had become bolder.

"Show me," he asked a tender demand. His hand slipped into your kimono as you felt the heat rise in your face. Osamu had seen you before, there was nothing you needed to hide from him. But what if someone would enter this room? What would they see?

Nonetheless, you dropped the heavy fabric off your shoulder - enough to expose most of your bare body to him - doing a half turn and pulled your arm out of the way. A mix of excitement and anticipation made your breath shake lightly as you drew the air in deeply. There it was, perfectly visible due to his sharp fangs, not too high or too low, on the side of your body but more into the direction of your back: His mark. One of them, at least.

How thoughtful had it been of him, to leave it where not even Shinsuke would notice? Even if your husband touched your side, his fingers wouldn't feel the bumps that the imprint of teeth left on you. Being with Shinsuke was a walk in the park in comparison to what all Osamu did to you. With your husband not forcing you into a position you didn't want, there really wasn't anything to fear even with Osamu's signature on your body. Yet, it was so damn risky, it made you tingly inside all over again. 

There was another bite on your ankle, a deep scratch on your shoulder, and if someone looked closely, your left ear was nibbled on too. They were there, truly they were. The marks of defiance and, to you, the symbols of freedom. The freedom to chose and be with whoever you want to and do whatever you wished to. No one, not even Shinsuke, could have taken that from you, even if he believed you were the perfect little wife waiting for him at home. But you were in the arms of someone else entirely.

"Oh, it's healing nicely," Osamu commented, his touch so soft, it sparked excitement in you. "Is that good?" you asked since it was your first and oldest mark. 

"So-so," he grumbled, and you felt an anxious sting as you heard that. However, against your worries that it was upsetting him, Osamu rose again with a grin, leaving a quick, rough kiss on your cheek before whispering into your ear, "Just means I can leave a new one."

You chuckled as he helped you get dressed again, getting ready to leave. You'd have loved to step out of this storage room without having to check that no one was around, but of course, it all wasn't  _ that  _ easy in the end. Oh, how much joy would it have given you to hold Osamu's hand, displaying it to everyone, and have him walk by your side, and not two steps behind you? To not hide what you two were doing behind closed doors and in the shadows, leaving everyone else to speculate? Undoubtedly, your life would have been filled with felicity and happiness, but it wasn't the fate meant for you. 

Stepping out after checking that no one would see you emerge, you two made your way down the long halls of the mansion, passing by the seemingly endless rooms and the inside garden towards your own chambers. The workers you met bowed respectfully as they let you pass, but a look over your shoulder revealed the grimaces they still threw at Osamu. However, you didn't have to worry about him. The expressions  _ he  _ returned made them gasp and trot off indignantly, leaving him to show you a victorious smile and making you chuckle quietly. Just as much as you loved messing with everyone by pretending to be a good wife to their clan leader, Osamu liked to mess with everyone who still couldn't accept that a 'runt' like him was to be your personal guard, following their dear lady everywhere. 

They didn't recognize or bothered that Osamu was just as much a prisoner in their community as you were. One night, he had opened up about why he was here, how he saved his brother from being killed by Tengu, dragging him here and into the safety of the clan. How Kita had allowed them to stay and how Osamu's twin had left since he couldn't bring himself to adjust to this way of living. The twins had lived alone all their lives. To join this community surely hadn't been an easy change for them. Nevertheless, you were glad that Osamu, for the first time, decided to separate from his brother in favor of staying. You were relieved that even though you both were in dire circumstances, you at least had each other to be 'different' with. 

By now, you couldn't deny your yearning for the guard trotting after you. The pull on your heartstrings whenever your eyes met, and the jump in your chest when he said your name. If only all this around you wasn't, you believed you could have become happy at Osamu's side. To you, he was simply perfect. He could do no wrong in your eyes, even if you weren't aware of all his intentions and thoughts. Yet, you had never felt so connected with anyone, despite not knowing if it was  _ just because  _ of this situation you were in. Nevertheless, you hoped that he knew. 

Knew that you'd have done anything if it was for him. 

"Ah, Milady," you heard someone call out to you, tearing you out of your thoughts. A noble fox woman, with her face sheepishly covered by her sleeve as she approached you. Was she new? Despite the fox-faces being able to change, you thought you'd recognize most of them by now, but this one didn't make you remember a name or role in the clan. "I apologize for approaching you so rudely," she said, but you knew she wasn't sorry at all. 

"My husband and I are here to visit Kita-sama for talks about our shared borders of your respective clans, and I intended to greet his wife. We only briefly met at your wedding, however, I hope you remember me?"

If not for the smile you put on, you could have bit yourself, finally remembering who she was.  _ Pesky _ was the word that appeared in your mind, as she had bothered you with her talking back at the wedding celebrations, disregarding your unwell appearance in favor of declaring that you two would have a friendship for all your life. Then she never so much as wrote you. Still, it was rude if you were to tell her off, and after all you did to get to this point, you had to keep your face. 

"Indeed, what a pleasure to see you again! Welcome to our home!" you laughed, bowing in unison with her as she let out a few chuckles herself. The faked happiness seemed to not bother her in the slightest if she noticed it in your voice, probably used to it by now, considering most of the conversation she must have with other foxes. In a way, she wasn't so much different from you, but as a fox herself, she could at least live the lifestyle and the customs of her kind, which would always be odd to you. 

"Thank you, I am so happy I was able to meet you! Your maid said you weren't in your room currently, so I was hoping to find you wandering about. I heard you like to disappear from time to time."

Ah, there it was. The accusations that would lead to even more talking behind your back about how unfit for your role you were.

"I wouldn't call it disappearing, but you know how  _ hard  _ it is to keep up with the duties. Especially considering our clan is so much bigger  _ than yours _ . It takes me almost the whole day, wouldn't you know?" 

Luckily, you had gotten better at the game of talking, too, and she let out a huff before finally lowering her hand and revealing her fox snout to you. You had grown to see all kinds of features, but it was nevertheless weird to experience the sight of half-human, half-fox faces. "Well, I am sure you've been keeping  _ very  _ busy. How far are you?"

Making a step forward, the fox didn't ask for your consent as she touched the tiny baby bump below your stomach, feeling it. "We are on the twelfth week," you laughed, pushing her hand away and taking a liberating step back. _ Of course _ , other clans had already heard the 'good' news about the child growing inside you, many of them already sending you their well-wishes, and she wasn't any different. 

"How nice," she snarked, her maw never ceasing to grin the same sly smile you were used to. "Hopefully it will be a little cub worth of taking over the leadership of his father someday, like my son. My family has always been blessed to bear male offspring. One of the reasons my hubby chose me all those years ago, and I've been blessing him with many pups ever since. How about yours?"

It wasn't a topic you wanted to discuss with some obscure fox, but you couldn't let her - with her snarky remarks and trying to one-up you - win this war of words either. "Well, I was chosen because my husband  _ loves  _ me, not because I am certainly bearing sons. Whatever it wants to be, that is fine with me. Who knows? Maybe I'll get to raise a sweet daughter to be the future leader of our clan, wouldn't that be lovely?"

It sounded like a mix of growl and huff that she let out as she puffed her chest, regaining a straight posture in contrast to the usual hump you saw many foxes do. Instantly, she appeared much taller and more menacing, but at the same time, you felt Osamu closing in to you, and in his presence, you felt safe while she seemed to be appalled to be faced with your guard more closely now. "Don't be absurd, that wouldn't be lovely at all! You should know that only sons can--"

Suddenly, she turned around as a yapping was heard from afar. It was harder for you to witness than the two foxes with you, but she returned to you with another faked, friendly smile, bidding her goodbyes. "I look forward to meeting again," she cooed before waddling back into the direction she had come from, the conversation ending as abruptly as it had started. The farther she got, the more you could see over her statue, noticing Shinsuke standing at the end of the hallway with another male fox who might just have been the lady's husband as she walked back to him.

They all bowed to each other as they spoke their farewells, Shinsuke waiting until they were gone before his head turned to you, arms leisurely crossing before him and hidden from sight by his own sleeves as approaching you casually. "I hope she wasn't pestering you," he spoke, knowing well just what kind of person that woman was. "I wouldn't want her to stress you and the baby too much."

His lips curled into a smile as he spoke of the child inside you, and you let him approach you closely, his lips making fleeting contact with your cheek while his hand landed on your belly. Shinsuke, too, loved thinking of the kid, perhaps more than about you. By now, you were able to take it better than you did initially as you had to noticed how much nicer he treated you ever since you became pregnant, giving you back some freedom and relieving you of parties and work if you weren't feeling well. It showed exactly what kind of role you had, and it was a lot to take. Luckily you had Osamu by your side to vent to. 

"I have to go now, Dearest. Osamu, take care of her, will you?" Shinsuke gave your guard a short, appreciative glance, and Osamu nodded, your husband not minding it that he didn't always follow proper manners when talking to the leader. And as quick as he had appeared, he was gone again, and you were unsure if you'd even see him before breakfast on the next morning as Shinsuke never shared what he had to do and where he went. 

"Come on." Pressing his hand into your back, Osamu pushed you on, you two having no clear destination but no reason to remain in the middle of a hallway either. "It's frustrating," you whispered, and he sighed, knowing how bitter it was to you to be… well, you. "Those people, Kita, everything. Everything is simply frustrating."

Gentlemanly, Osamu opened the door to your room for you, at least one gesture he had internalized in all this time. After all, he knew better than you if someone was waiting behind a door, so he was an excellent guide whenever you two needed to find some privacy. "Only you…" you muttered as you stepped in, hearing the door close behind you. Turning around, you faced him, and he opened his arms for you to flee into. You tightly embraced him, hoping that perhaps it would change the world if all you could see, feel, and hear was the person you loved. 

"Only you are not frustrating."

Osamu let out a low laugh, his chest trembling under your head, but you loved that sound. "I know," he eventually said, brushing his hair over your head soothingly. His touch was so sweet and comforting, you could only melt into it. If it was for you, you could have stayed like this forever, as you felt a place of belonging in his arms.

"That's why you love me, right?" 

Hearing the word 'love' fall off his lips made you shudder excitedly, warmth rushing back to your face as your heart picked up the speed. It always sounded like a dream come true when he acknowledged your feelings, and you were just so happy that he understood you. "Right," you mumbled, hiding your face in his chest. However, Osamu had very different plans for you. 

"You love me, so you'll never leave me, right?"

These words caught you off-guard, and when he surprisingly pushed you back at your shoulders, you almost expected him to have some form of nervousness and or hurt in his expression. However, when you looked up at him questioningly, you were taken aback by what you saw. 

You loved Osamu, and by now, you thought you knew him fairly well too. But the shine of jealousy, paired with the tight grip on your shoulders and the demanding and disdainful look on his face - that was new. In fact, never had you seen him show even one of those emotions, and you were overwhelmed with how to react appropriately to them. 

"O-Of course not," you stuttered, rubbing your hands affectionately over his arms, hoping it would ease the hold he had on you and soothe his worries. "You know that I would never even think about it."

"Good." Immediately, his features soften, and he allowed you back into his embrace, even though you felt a bit confused by what just happened. "Promise me then," he continued, whispering the words into your ears, "that you won't let him kiss you next time."

Now it was you who pushed yourself away from him, but no matter the strength you used, you had no chance to get away, caught in his arms that seemed to snake around you more and more by the second. "If you truly love me, you wouldn't let this filth touch you. You know I am the one who marked you; no other man should come so close to you."

"O-Osamu," you croaked, his strong arms beginning to squeeze the air out of your lungs. "He's my husband… I can't just--"

"You can. Just tell him no."

"But he will notice and--"

"So what? Let him notice. Let him know who you belong to."

Biting your lip, you didn't know what to say, but even in your situation, you could understand what Osamu must be feeling. It must have taken its toll on him too when he saw Shinsuke touch or kiss you, and it must affect him to see you so down afterwards also. 

Much to your surprise, his grip suddenly loosened, and he gave you free as you didn't react and ceased your struggles. You took a deep breath as you stumbled back a few steps, looking up at him. "I see," he noted dully, and you felt your heart break as his shoulders slumped and ears lowered sadly. "I guess in the end, I'll never be good enough in comparison to your lovely husband, is that it? My company isn't worth enough for a few favors, I suppose..."

"N-No!" you practically screamed at him, an irrational fear rising in you as you heard these words. It sounded almost like he'd leave you, and you panicked as the thought crossed your mind. "No! You know I'd do anything for you! Osamu--"

With a sigh, the fox had already turned, walking towards the door as you caught up to him, slinging your hands around his torso frantically and pressing up against him. "Anything. If you want me to refuse him… I'll find a way, I guess. Please don't be mad with me. I need you, Osamu! You're all I want in my life."

For a moment, it was painfully quiet between you two until finally, his hand laid on top of yours, and he nodded. "I understand," he mumbled, turning around and lowering his head to kiss you, an affection you eagerly returned. You never wanted to let go of his lips or his warmth. No matter what you had to do, if it would keep him at your side, you'd do it all. 

In your desperation, you couldn't have known that Osamu was no fox to trust either. There weren't options to chose from, and there was no one quite like him that would have gone through with everything you wanted, knowing fully well it gave him the reign to demand anything  _ he  _ wanted from you. Osamu knew you were but a puppet in his hands, and he was the puppeteer. But who else did you have to turn to? Who else could return your feelings? There was no one, and nothing could tear you two apart, as he was all you had left, and you had to take your best shot at what you could in this village full of fakeness and arrogant traditions. And that was him.

"I know it's hard for you too," he soothed you, brushing away the anxious tears in your eyes before leaving a kiss on each lid. "I'll try to not demand too much from you, so how about… Instead, promise me something else?"

Taking a deep breath, you nodded firmly. "I will. Tell me what you want," you assured him, giving the corners of his smiling lips a kiss each. "I'll do all I can."

"Thank you," he sighed, pulling you into a comforting hug, his body warm and enveloping you securely. "Then promise me…" he whispered. You had your heart set on doing whatever he would tell you to. He was all you had, and you'd treasure Osamu with everything you could offer to him, mind, body, and soul.

"Promise me that the next child will be mine as well."

It was a foolish wish, of a foolish fox, biting off more than he could eat. But if he could have his fun in this village while also having you do all the work for him, and have the pleasure of being loved by you, then Osamu would gladly take it. 

Foolish as you were, you looked up at him as if he was the god that was going to deliver you from your pitiful existence. 

And you smiled and agreed, sealing the fox promise with a kiss of eternal devotion.


End file.
